Mori Kougei 森工芸

New In: Mori Kougei 森工芸, Master Veneer Craft from Tokushima, Japan

For nearly seventy years, Mori Kougei has worked from Tokushima, a city on the island of Shikoku in southern Japan, perfecting the craft of tsuki-ita: wood sliced into sheets as thin as paper. Now in its third generation under craftsman Hiroyuki Mori, the studio selects grain and tone across more than ninety wood species, then arranges the veneer by hand into geometric patterns, including their signature kōsen-bari, where triangles of wood radiate outward from a single center point.

The result is a kind of drawing made entirely from wood grain, each tray built piece by piece from dozens of individually placed veneer triangles, the pattern resolving only once every piece is set in place. The round trays find a natural place at the table, and the flatter plates plate just as beautifully, whether for a course at dinner or a quieter role holding keys and small objects on a console or entry table.

Shop the collection in our Santa Monica store and online at arj.la/collections/mori-kougei