New Balance’s Latest Tokyo Store Made From a Repurposed Kura
In Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district, New Balance’s 15th Japan store—named T-House New Balance—is unmarked but unmissable. Accessed through a set of sliding doors on the all-white, windowless façade, the inside boasts an intricate system of wooden beams above the showroom floor. The store used to be a 122-year-old kura (a clay warehouse and merchant home) that was located in Kawagoe, a town northwest of Tokyo. This kura—with plenty of guidance from carpenters and experts on traditional woodwork—was dismantled, transported and rebuilt for the project. New Balance worked with Schemata Architects on the ambitious store, and Jo Nagasaka (an architect on the project) says, a big challenge was avoiding “fakeness: like an old folk house displayed in a museum.” She explains to Spoon & Tamago, “It would be like wearing a kimono to an award ceremony overseas even if you never wear one in everyday life.” Read more at Spoon & Tamago.
Image courtesy of New Balance
Via spoon-tamago.com/ link opens in a new window
