You’ve probably seen cooking utensils that look like wire netting? The wire netting (‘kana-ami’) utensils are made by artisans in Kyoto and have been used for over a thousand years to cook Kyoto’s sublime cuisine. Kanaami-Tsuji is a wire netting firm in Kyoto that works to preserve the craft by creating ways to use it in modern day living. The company collaborated with nendo to create a pendant light, called Basket-Light, using this technique. The lamp’s light reflects through its handcrafted shade showing the delicate woven pattern on the ceiling.
The designers didn’t come up with the shadows on the ceiling idea – it was said to have originated from the shadow created when lifting blocks of tofu from boiling water when creating Kyoto’s famous dish, yudofu. It did inspire them, though.
Photos by Akihiro Yoshida.