Q&A
Karimoku is a word made up of two Japanese words — “Kari”, short for “Kariya”, a name of the Japanese town in which the company was founded, and “Moku”, short for “Mokuzai” meaning “Wood” in Japanese. So you might say that the company name summarizes our identity. I love it because it contains my home- town and my favourite material, wood.
My grandfather, Shohei Kato, started a small wood mill at his house in 1940. He and his staff made various objects such as wooden parts for things like sawing machines and pianos. In the 1950s, an American furniture company came looking for a supplier in Japan. My grandfather then decided to work with them in order to educate himself in making western style furniture. He felt the Japanese lifestyle had been changing towards an increasingly more westernized one quite rapidly. Karimoku also learned a lot from TPS (Toyota Production System). We’re lucky that our location is close to that of Toyota HQ. Historically, there were few woodcraft workers in our area, and TPS helped us turn amateur workers into professional ones. Karimoku has expanded steadily from learning and challenging our approach and process.
Quality as high as possible. We would like to make wooden furniture to which customers become strong- ly attached. To make furniture from wood, we use trees that take between 50 to 100 years to grow. We always keep that in mind and are humble about what we do. We want to make furniture that last; that will be used and loved for more than a hundred years.
I believe that Karimoku will acquire a new approach to furniture design as well as expand our business opportunities. The starting point of furniture-making for Karimoku Case as a brand is completely different from how furniture design is approached today. With this innovative approach, we’ll need to understand the ideal structure and atmosphere of each space and case before moving on with the design process.
Norm Architects is soft minimal. Keiji Ashizawa is honest design. While respecting their values 100%, we will do our very best to make furniture and other wooden objects suitable for each specific case. With Karimoku Case we would like to show and deliver the essential value of furniture necessary for the good life.
There are, in my opinion, a couple of key reasons why Karimoku is different from other furniture manufacturers. First of all, we make all our furniture in factories owned by us — all of which are located both in the Aichi prefecture and Gifu prefecture, Japan. Each factory is specially developed to create and work with specific furniture categories: one factory for making dining chairs, others for upholstery, and so on. We’ve been working this way since the beginning because our goal remains producing the best quality furniture in the most reliable and efficient way. We procure solid wood lumber and handle the entire process ourselves. That way we can guarantee the quality of the wood and the reliability of our furniture. We do not use any illegally logged wood, and we look out for our suppliers’ forests, making sure we stick to a sustainable approach. Finally, our manufacturing concept is high-tech and high-touch. We’ve been looking for the most ideal combination or balance between machine-made and man-made. We don’t want to make industrial objects. We want to make highly crafted, industrial objects with the Japanese sense of beauty.
Within the past 10 years, we’ve successfully launched a series of new collections. They are results of our open, innovative approach. With Karimoku New Standard (KNS), we developed unique designs through collaborative work with international designers. KNS demonstrates our new concept and approach to furniture-making. We’re always happy to work with young talents to share growth opportunity. We also developed KUNST collection with Milan based design duo, Inoda&Sveje. That’s a completely different design approach and style from KNS. We applied the most advanced, state-of-the-art wood processing technology and craft to make them, while being respectful towards the Japanese and Danish design values and traditional sense of beauty. I believe we’ve been successful in delivering more diversified value recently.
Looking back, our focus was solely on creating high quality wooden furniture. While we always keep improving our production systems, because we love and take pride in making high quality wood furniture, we now try to improve our communication with the market and go beyond furniture making. Our ultimate goal is to make people happier by improving spaces with our furniture. I believe that making quality furniture is at our core, but that it isn’t enough. We want to tell their stories, too.
Q&A
Karimoku is a word made up of two Japanese words — “Kari”, short for “Kariya”, a name of the Japanese town in which the company was founded, and “Moku”, short for “Mokuzai” meaning “Wood” in Japanese. So you might say that the company name summarizes our identity. I love it because it contains my home- town and my favourite material, wood.
There are, in my opinion, a couple of key reasons why Karimoku is different from other furniture manufacturers. First of all, we make all our furniture in factories owned by us — all of which are located both in the Aichi prefecture and Gifu prefecture, Japan. Each factory is specially developed to create and work with specific furniture categories: one factory for making dining chairs, others for upholstery, and so on. We’ve been working this way since the beginning because our goal remains producing the best quality furniture in the most reliable and efficient way. We procure solid wood lumber and handle the entire process ourselves. That way we can guarantee the quality of the wood and the reliability of our furniture. We do not use any illegally logged wood, and we look out for our suppliers’ forests, making sure we stick to a sustainable approach. Finally, our manufacturing concept is high-tech and high-touch. We’ve been looking for the most ideal combination or balance between machine-made and man-made. We don’t want to make industrial objects. We want to make highly crafted, industrial objects with the Japanese sense of beauty.
My grandfather, Shohei Kato, started a small wood mill at his house in 1940. He and his staff made various objects such as wooden parts for things like sawing machines and pianos. In the 1950s, an American furniture company came looking for a supplier in Japan. My grandfather then decided to work with them in order to educate himself in making western style furniture. He felt the Japanese lifestyle had been changing towards an increasingly more westernized one quite rapidly. Karimoku also learned a lot from TPS (Toyota Production System). We’re lucky that our location is close to that of Toyota HQ. Historically, there were few woodcraft workers in our area, and TPS helped us turn amateur workers into professional ones. Karimoku has expanded steadily from learning and challenging our approach and process.
Quality as high as possible. We would like to make wooden furniture to which customers become strong- ly attached. To make furniture from wood, we use trees that take between 50 to 100 years to grow. We always keep that in mind and are humble about what we do. We want to make furniture that last; that will be used and loved for more than a hundred years.
Within the past 10 years, we’ve successfully launched a series of new collections. They are results of our open, innovative approach. With Karimoku New Standard (KNS), we developed unique designs through collaborative work with international designers. KNS demonstrates our new concept and approach to furniture-making. We’re always happy to work with young talents to share growth opportunity. We also developed KUNST collection with Milan based design duo, Inoda&Sveje. That’s a completely different design approach and style from KNS. We applied the most advanced, state-of-the-art wood processing technology and craft to make them, while being respectful towards the Japanese and Danish design values and traditional sense of beauty. I believe we’ve been successful in delivering more diversified value recently.
Looking back, our focus was solely on creating high quality wooden furniture. While we always keep improving our production systems, because we love and take pride in making high quality wood furniture, we now try to improve our communication with the market and go beyond furniture making. Our ultimate goal is to make people happier by improving spaces with our furniture. I believe that making quality furniture is at our core, but that it isn’t enough. We want to tell their stories, too.
I believe that Karimoku will acquire a new approach to furniture design as well as expand our business opportunities. The starting point of furniture-making for Karimoku Case as a brand is completely different from how furniture design is approached today. With this innovative approach, we’ll need to understand the ideal structure and atmosphere of each space and case before moving on with the design process.
Norm Architects is soft minimal. Keiji Ashizawa is honest design. While respecting their values 100%, we will do our very best to make furniture and other wooden objects suitable for each specific case. With Karimoku Case we would like to show and deliver the essential value of furniture necessary for the good life.
