DESIGN

Kokontozai: KASHIYUKA’s Shop of Japanese Arts and Crafts /[Chirori of Nagasaki Glass]

『カーサブルータス』2021年4月号より

April 8, 2021 | Design | casabrutus.com | photo_Keisuke Fukamizu hair & makeup_Masako Osuga editor_Masae Wako　translation_ Mika Yoshida & David G. Imber

Searching all of Japan for handcrafted items that express its heart and soul, our proprietor, KASHIYUKA, presents things that bring a bit of luxury to everyday life. On this encounter she finds an azure-colored glass vessel for sake in a revived craft style from the Edo era called Nagasaki Bidoro.

Bidoro — derived from the Portuguese for glass, vidro — is a hand-blown glass style that arrived through a port at Nagasaki during the Edo period (1603 – 1868), when Japan chose to be sequestered from the larger world. This is Rurian, the studio that brought this vintage technique to modern times. Holding a sake vessel in the chirori form, recreated using the Edo-era handcrafting technique, KASHIYUKA notes, “The color appears solid and deep, yet it has a marvelous transparency.”

Many traditional Japanese crafts arise from foreign techniques. One such is glassmaking. During the long period of Japan’s isolation, the Bidoro style turned up through the Dejima trading post at the port of Nagasaki. From there it spread to Edo (today’s Tokyo), Satsuma (now Kagoshima), and Osaka. The Bidoro technique involves wrapping molten glass onto a hollow rod and creating various shapes with the breath while suspending it in motion.

Purchase No.36【Chirori of Nagasaki Glass】A Bidoro glass sake set the color of lapis lazuli that recalls a bygone era.

“Official records show that by 1676 Bidoro had already appeared in Nagasaki,” says Mr. Katsuto Takeda of glassmaking studio Rurian. He’s also worked on the stained glass restoration of Japan’s oldest Christian church, a recognized National Treasure called Oura Cathedral; as well as design details of the elaborate floats for the Nagasaki Kunchi, a local festival of long tradition. It was Mr. Takeda who revived the making of the Nagasaki Chirori teapot-style cold sake flask that was first seen in Nagasaki in the 18th century, and then simply ceased to be made.

Scissors used exclusively in glass crafting. The ends are shaped to wrap around and grasp the molten glass.

“The studio mixes a unique color formula to achieve the rich azure tone of lapis lazuli. Form is created by shaping the molten glass in the air. Speed is everything, because when motion stops the temperature drops and it breaks immediately,” explains Ayato Takeda, the second-generation artisan who demonstrated for me the making of a chirori piece. He first makes the body of the pot by blowing into a mound of glass heated to 1100° centigrade, spinning the rod constantly so as to allow gravity to determine its form.