Sensitive flashes of light decorate the humble light, which stands atop a trio of subtle legs and is carried by a bulb-like shape. Standing just over half a metre tall, the Vitra Akari 3AD Table Lamp is an aesthetic and technical marvel, with the iconic design achieved using the most traditional handmade production techniques.
Stemming from Gifu, Japan, the home of the paper lantern, the Akari range is a line full of history and heritage, and is destined to remain a popular mainstay of interior design culture for aeons.
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).
