Design Moment
Traditional Japanese lanterns inspired the Akari light, which has in turn become a design classic, writes Chris Pearson.
How Isamu Noguchi blended his Japanese and American heritage into a timeless light design.
American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (pictured) was visiting the Japanese town of Gifu, about 300km west of Tokyo, in 1951 when he quite literally had a light-bulb moment. The local mayor had asked him to revitalise the town’s ailing lantern industry by creating a lamp for export. Noguchi was watching night fishing on the Nagara River, illuminated by traditional fire-lit lanterns, when he conceived of fusing those lanterns – made from bamboo and washi paper – with electricity. Since the 1940s he had been toying with illuminated sculptures, and in these new abstract shapes he combined the Zen-like simplicity of the Japanese aesthetic with crisp Modernist design. Aptly, he called his invention Akari, meaning ‘light’, a nod to the lamps’ weightlessness as well as their capacity to provide illumination.
Comparing them to cherry blossoms and falling leaves, Noguchi wrote, Akaris are “poetic, ephemeral, and tentative... The harshness of electricity is transformed through the magic of paper back to the light of our origin – the sun – so that its warmth may continue to fill our rooms at night.”
The lanterns also embodied his Japanese American heritage. Born in Los Angeles in 1904, Noguchi was the son of an American mother and a Japanese poet. Straddling two cultures, he spent his childhood in Japan before returning to the US for his education. After working with sculptor Constantin Brâncusi in Paris, he became an artist in New York, where he began melding elements of Japanese art with Western modernism.
Honouring his undertaking to the mayor of Gifu, Noguchi wanted his light sculptures to be produced by the town’s traditional methods. Akaris have been made by the Ozeki Company (paradoxically, Ozeki means ‘sumo wrestler’) ever since. Each Akari is crafted from washi paper derived from the bark of the mulberry tree, which is cut into strips and glued onto a bamboo frame stretched across a wooden mould.
Once the glue has dried and the shape set, the mould is disassembled and removed. The result is a resilient paper form, which can be collapsed, flatpacked for shipping and reshaped using Noguchi’s metal-wire stretcher and support system. “Noguchi’s electrified paper, bamboo and metal light sculptures have quietly become among the most ubiquitous sculptures on Earth,” says Dakin Hart, senior curator of the Noguchi Museum in New York.
WHAT IT MEANS TO US
Noguchi produced more than 100 table, ceiling and floor iterations of the Akari. And the design is ever fluid – as well as 39 models currently in the range, three new models debuted at the recent Paris Maison & Objet trade fair, says Barbara Friedli, head of corporate and brand communications for Vitra (the Swiss company that obtained rights to produce Noguchi furniture for Europe and Australia from 2002). “A modern continuation of the Japanese handcraft tradition, the lights seem to float.”
“I love the romance of Akaris,” says Sydney interior designer Sarah Davison. “The way they emulate moonlight – uniquely warm and soft – is beautiful.” And they suit any interior. “I’ve used them in Victorian terraces, 1970s apartments and contemporary buildings.”
Akaris offer a combination of “repose and dynamism we seldom see in lighting”, adds Jo Mawhinney, director of product brand and experience at Living Edge, the local distributor for Vitra. “Its many forms celebrate flexibility and fun – flexibility in the sense that it works in a host of interior styles, and fun in that it makes you smile.”