In 1951, American/Japanese artist and designer Isamu Noguchi started to design the Akari Light Sculptures. A total of over 100 hand-made Shoji-paper models for table lights, standard lamps or ceiling luminaries were created.
For the name of this lighting series he chose the word "akari", the Japanese terms for brightness and light, and also lightness.
"The light of Akari is like the light of the sun filtered through the paper of shoji. The harshness of electricity is thus transformed through the magic of paper back to the light of our origin – the sun – so that its warmth may continue to fill our rooms at night." Isamu Noguchi.
Isamu Noguchi was born in 1904 in Los Angeles to the Japanese poet Yone Noguchi and the American writer Leonie Gilmour. He went on to study at Columbia University and the Leonardo da Vinci Art School. His iconic paper lights by Vitra are true Design Classics.
