Named after the Japanese word for ‘light’, the Akari range of lamps are distinctive in their delicacy and form, comprising over 100 models across the collection. The 9A floor lamp is one of Vitra’s newest additions to this iconic group of designs, balancing a rounded shade, made from traditional Japanese Washi paper, upon delicate metal legs.
Each Akari lamp is hand-crafted to this day in the traditional family-run workshop in Gifu, Japan, and features a sun and moon makers mark, guaranteeing their authenticity.
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).
