Produced by the hands of master craftspeople in the province of Gifu, Japan, the Vitra Akari 1AG Table Lamp is a true perennial. The Akari Lighting Sculpture series stands amongst the most iconic lines in contemporary design culture, having proven popular ever since Noguchi designed the first of these lamps in 1951. The Akari 1AG stands at 43cm in height, making it a formidable presence in any living space, while the unique colour scheme marks it out from its contemporaries in the wider Akari Lighting Sculpture line.
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).