Vase by Nakagawa Mokkouegi

Third-generation woodworker Shuji Nakagawa at Nakagawa Mokkouegi in Shiga used a 700-year-old technique called Ki-Oke (or bucket-making) to craft these vases—in an edition of 30 unique pieces. Today there are just a few of these traditional artisans left—and unlike many of his peers, Nakagawa also uses the technique to create more modern objects like these. For this particular commission, we asked him to create a …