One of the most distinctive pieces from the Akari series, the 1N has a personality of its own. A charismatic lean gives the 1N a charming quality and reflects the history of the lamp series being handmade since the 1950s. Noguchi chose the name Akari as it connotes brightness in Japan.
The Akari lamp is still made in Japan, some seventy years on from Noguchi's first experiments. Discover our full 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).
