Centre Pompidou Acquires Toshiyuki Kita's Wakamaru Robot for Design Collection
On June 29, 2026, the Centre Pompidou announced the acquisition of Wakamaru, a humanoid domestic robot designed by Toshiyuki Kita for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, for its design collection. Developed from 2001 and launched in Japan in 2005, the yellow, wheeled robot stands one meter tall, weighs nearly thirty kilograms, recognizes family members, and communicates with a vocabulary of about ten thousand words. Designed for elderly assistance, it can remind users of appointments, signal unusual situations, or call for help, embodying Kita's vision of a robot that becomes a familiar presence in the home rather than a mere service machine.
The Signal
The acquisition signals a broader institutional recognition of robotics as a design discipline, bridging industrial design, technology, and social care. Wakamaru, which was produced in small series and priced at around twelve thousand euros, never achieved mass-market success, but its entry into the Pompidou collection positions it as a pivotal artifact of early-2000s design thinking. For collectors and curators, the move underscores a growing interest in objects that challenge the boundary between functional design and relational technology, presaging today's voice assistants and conversational AI while insisting on the importance of physical form and human interaction.
- Artists: Toshiyuki Kita
- Museums: Centre Pompidou
- Locations: Paris
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