Chidori Furniture

A collaboration between designers and traditional craft artisans from East Japan and Kengo Kuma and Associates.

East Japan Project is a collaboration between designers and traditional craft artisans from East Japan and Kengo Kuma and Associates, with the purpose to propose The New Lifestyle as a concept design for post 3.11 Tohoku earthquake. The New Lifestyle refers to a way of life that is deeply rooted in a locality. Locality is another name for the system in which every aspect of a place—climate, culture, and people—is integrated in a natural way. This system however, disappeared in the urbanized society of the 20th century with its pursuit for efficiency and convenience. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake in eastern Japan urges us to revisit this lost system and reevaluate its implications for a modern society.

The New Lifestyle attempts to reverse the course of the 20th century and to revive the notion of place through the collaboration with craftsmen from the Tohoku region in eastern Japan. – Yanagi Muneyoshi who lead the mingei (folk craft) movement of Japan in the late 1920s, once called the Tohoku region 'the land of handcraft'.

Chidori Furniture is a flexible system developed from the joint system of Chidori.

In the framework of the East Japan Project (Ejp), to achieve this mode of New Lifestyle, the products are conceptualized as new types of daily tools with a deep appreciation of local craftsmanship and material and are to be part of a larger product portfolio called, 'location'.

Transformed from the traditional system of Chidori, 1 unit of Chidori Furniture consists of 12 timber sticks with different junction details.

As one of Ejp Products, Chidori Furniture is a flexible system developed from the joint system of Chidori. Chidori, the name of an old Japanese toy from Hida Takayama, a small town in Japan, is originally an assembly of wood sticks with unique joints. Transformed from the traditional system of Chidori, 1 unit of Chidori Furniture consists of 12 timber sticks with different junction details. Each modular unit of Chidori Furniture can be connected to from all 6 sides making numerous combinations possible. Merely by twisting the sticks, without any nails or metal fittings, it shows a myriad of possibilities to become anything from a table to a shelf. The 2010 project GC Prostho Museum Research Center by Kengo Kuma and Associates is another project developed on basis of the Chidori system.

Chidori, the name of an old Japanese toy from Hida Takayama, a small town in Japan, is originally an assembly of wood sticks with unique joints.

The junction details of the system require the high level of craftsmanship in Tohoku region to produce. One of the manufacturers, Fujisato Mokkoujo (Fujisato Woodshop) in Iwate Prefecture, is well-known for making Iwayado Tansu Drawers, which originated in the late 1700s. Their expertise in precise wood crafting and lacquer painting could produce multiple identical units of Chidori Furniture.

Chidori Furniture is currently exhibited in Bals Tokyo Nakameguro and Ginza stores and is also for sale.

A traditional craft artisan from East Japan at work.

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Chidori Furniture

A collaboration between designers and traditional craft artisans from East Japan and Kengo Kuma and Associates.

Enveloped by nature

The details of minimalist architecture

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