Kazarino
Kinzoku (kazari kanagu)
kazarino
Metalworks with Japanese aesthetics
The discreet beauty of daily goods, with a Japanese twist.
Kazarino (錺之) is a new brand belonging to Takeuchi, a company in the metalworking industry founded in 1968.
Takeuchi has specialized in the creation of metalworks for temples, shrines, altars, and other applications where precision, quality and beauty must be paired with highly wear-resistant materials.
The brand was created by the company's desire to give access to the traditional kazari kanagu craft to a wider public, while ensuring that the craftmanship and authenticity are preserved.
In line with this pledge, Kazarino produces objects of daily use, also using materials that age well without losing in quality.
Kazarino products are made by blending techniques that include crafting (design, carving) and the use of human-assisted machines to turn the original hand-carved matrix into products.
Traditional crafts in daily life
Founded in Kyoto in 1968, Takeuchi has been creating an estimated 3000 handmade pieces of metalworks for applications that require both extremely high quality and specific designs. Among their most prominent clients there are temples, shrines and artisans of buddhist altars for home use.
High quality requires first-choice materials, and extraordinary skills are necessary to create objects that look and feel good to the touch. This, combined with Takeuchi's specialization in items for religious purposes, causes the kazari kanagu craft to be hardly enjoyable in daily life. In fact, the name itself is not very well known, even among Japanese people.
Kazarino, Takeuchi's new brand, was created with the desire to apply the same principles of beauty and quality to objects of daily use, such as the simple brass or copper box you find on KiGinKin. The carving techniques used to create the decorations are the result of decades of experience working directly with the most demanding clients.
A separate note should be made, for those who are familiar with metalworks: Takeuchi and Kazarino do not use laser machines to create the pattern matrixes or the final products. Matrixes are hand-made by the Takeuchi artisans, and human-operated pressing machines are then used to apply them to the final products.
The artisans behind Kazarino
In the creation of kazari kanagu goods, there are two processes: subtraction and carving.
Carving is mostly used for Kazarino products.
The artisan will create the patterns directly on metal, by the use of a hammer and a number of different chisels: pointed, straight, curved, all in several thicknesses and lengths.
