Tokyo’s masters of minimalism, Nendo and their latest work – part of a solo exhibition at the Galleria Jannone – follows their theme of stripped-down aesthetic. Four new furniture pieces will be on show exploring the idea of transparency, but with a difference.

Akihiro Ito & Oki Sato

The Japanese design team have cast clear acrylic in a wooden form with a strong grain and then assembled the resulting pieces to create a table made of ‘transparent wood’.

“We cast clear acrylic in a wooden form with a strong grain and assembled the resulting pieces to create a table made of ‘transparent wood’. We reproduced the butt ends faithfully and bevelled the edges like floorboards, and matched the grains ends and dimensions of the wood used for the table legs to the ‘transparent wood’ to create a unified piece.

It’s not transparency that seeks only to disappear visually that Nendo were concerned with here, but the half-transparency that exists in graduations in the space between the transparent and the opaque, and the minute differences visible between different levels of transparency.

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