New Light Pottery brings its Japanese designs to Denmark in a harmonious craft exchange

Despite the physical distance, Danish and Japanese design share many similarities. Honest, high quality materials are favoured over the latest bling and simple is always better. This is true for both PP Møbler, one of the stalwarts of Danish furniture, and the Japanese lighting manufacturer New Light Pottery. Starting Tuesday the 22nd October, New Light Pottery will be showcasing its lights alongside PP’s Furniture at PP’s flagship store in Copenhagen. This marks the first time New Light Pottery’s lamps are shown outside of Japan and is a unique opportunity to experience their lamps first hand.

New Light Pottery arrives in Denmark

When New Light Pottery decided to test the waters outside of the Japanese archipelago, they immediately set their eyes on Denmark.

'I’ve been a fan of Danish and Scandinavian design forever. In terms of lights, there are so many wonderful brands from Denmark, that I was keen to see how our lights would be received here,' Hiroyuki Nagatomi, one of the two designers behind the brand, explains while he is setting up the exhibition.

Katja Kejser Pedersen, creative director of PP Møbler, explains the reasoning behind opening the showroom for New Light Pottery: 'I could see right away that the lamps were a beautiful match to the PP collection. Made in genuine materials with good attention to all the details and a strong focus on good craftsmanship.'

The exhibition has been designed by Copenhagen based Miki Morita and Suguru Kobayashi from Mok Architects. They have commissioned washi artist Wataru Hatano to do a series of paper panels in three different colours that act both as space dividers and backdrops for the lamps. The rough texture and earth-like colours of the panels add contrast to the beautiful finish of both the furniture and the lamps.

There is also a short movie projected on a handmade paper screen that shows the process of how some of the lamps are made. All New Light Pottery’s lamps are handmade in small factories around Japan, each specialising in a unique material or process. The solid brass lamps, such as the Bullet series, are made in Toyama by the company Nousaku, which has been working in brass and copper for more than a hundred years. Each lamp is casted using sand moulds and then finished by CNC. Some of them are further coloured to a burnt black by Iromasa, another company also based in Toyama. The finish is achieved by applying and heating traditional Japanese lacquer to the sold brass and is a unique finish from the region.

The exhibition features about half of New Light Pottery’s portfolio with several brand new lamps on display. Available both in pendant or wall/ceiling lamp the SOL series is a refreshing take on a traditional Japanese paper lantern. Both the shape (Nagatomi was inspired by the traditional Japanese spinning top for the tapered design of both the pendant and the wall/ceiling lamps) and the pairing of the humble paper with high-quality brass fittings gives the lamps a modern expression not really seen before in paper.

There is also a new lamp made of bent beech veneer called Moth. “I am a big fan of the butterfly stool by Sori Yanagi, and this was meant as a kind of tribute to him and the stool, hence the name.” Nagatomi explains. The structure is simple (as the butterfly stool) with three identical wooden parts joined together at the edges with six brass bolts.

The modern and effortless design of New Light Pottery’s lamps is a beautiful match for PP Møbler’s timeless furniture. And like the furniture, it is the quality of the craftsmanship that really makes the design come alive.

The exhibition runs until Saturday the 26th of October at PP Møbler’s flagship store in Copenhagen. www.newlightpottery.com www.pp.dk