A soft glow radiates from the washi-paper shade while thin metal legs peek out from the bottom. Emulating the manufacturing techniques used from its inception in the 1950s, the Akari series is still handmade in Noguchi’s native Japan. The 1AD stands out in particular for its considered, graphic markings around the top of the shade.
We stock a comprehensive range of pieces from the Vitra Akari light collection.
Isamu Noguchi was an American-Japanese designer who originally trained as a sculptor and brought a sculptural sensibility to everything he created: lighting, furniture, gardens and stage sets. He studied sculpture, after dropping out of medical school, in late 1920s New York and then in Paris as an assistant to Constantin Brancusi.
Noguchi designed a range of paper Akari lights throughout the 1950s and 1960s, alongside the popular organic furniture he made in curvy sculpted wood now part of the Vitra Collection, such as the Freeform Sofa and Coffee Table. He was equally prolific as a landscape architect; he recreated the ancient Buddhist stone gardens he had loved in Kyoto at Lever House in New York (1951), UNESCO in Paris (1951), the Yale campus (1960) and Jerusalem’s Israel Museum (1960).
