Counter Chair / Bar Stool
Designed by Shiro Kuramata
Exclusively produced for the restaurant Ume no Ki in Akanaka
Japan, 1970s
Lacquered wood, upholstered seat

Measurements
43 × 42 × 112h cm
16,9 × 16,5 × 44h in

Seat height: 76 cm
Seat height: 29,9 in

Literature
Deyan Sudjic, Shiro Kuramata, Phaidon Press, London, 2013
Takahiko Mori, Shiro Kuramata, Seigensha, Kyoto, 2011

Provenance
Restaurant Ume no Ki in Akanaka

About
This counter chair reflects Shiro Kuramata’s ability to reduce furniture to its essential forms while maintaining a strong visual identity. Elevated through its tall and slender proportions, the design acquires an almost architectural presence, where structure and negative space become equally important components of the composition.
The backrest, defined by intersecting horizontal and vertical planes, creates a graphic rhythm that recalls modernist abstraction and Japanese spatial sensibilities. Kuramata often approached furniture not as purely utilitarian objects but as studies in perception, experimenting with how form could alter the experience of space.
Even in his earlier wooden works, before his celebrated use of acrylic and industrial materials, Kuramata demonstrated a refined understanding of geometry and proportion. The result is a piece that transcends its practical function, occupying a position between furniture and sculpture.
Its restrained language and timeless silhouette place it firmly within Kuramata’s broader design vision: one where simplicity conceals conceptual depth and where everyday objects become poetic interventions within interior space.