The Vitra Akari BB3-55DD Floor Lamp stands amongst the largest of all of Noguchi's iconic range of paper lanterns at 185cm in height. The round shape of the lamp is designed to recall the sun, nature's source of light, with the acclaimed designer keen to bring together the modern conveniences of electricity in a form which is kind to the human spirit; in his own words "The harshness of electricity is thus transformed through the magic of paper back to the light of our origin – the sun.". The Akari Light Sculpture series is produced in Gifu, Japan, the home of paper lantern production, by master craft-people.
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).