Hashi Mori's design gives character to this otherwise faceless edifice: from the other side of the street, one notices the restaurant's bar and exterior façade, which are filled with half a ton of Japanese rice and backlit to cast a diffused glow both inside and outside its doors. Particularly startling when reflected off of icy pavement in cold months, this glow reaches into the street like an intangible extension of the restaurant's modest 175 square meters, and acts as an invitation inside.
As one approaches the restaurant, the back wall appears through the window as a lush forest. Upon entering, one sees these woods gradually disintegrate into a wallpaper of abstract lines, hand drawn on the computer then processed by a customized script. The vertical lines of the wallpaper complement the vertical lines of the restaurant's centerpiece: its 56 square meter ceiling installation made of 13,454 hand drilled, stained, and threaded chopsticks, 57,400 knots, and over 20 kilometers of nylon. Installed by a crew of 14 people over three weeks, this "undulating" chopstick canopy is at once a very literal insignia for the restaurant, and a sensitive culmination of its metaphors.
Installed by a crew of 14 people over three weeks, this "undulating" chopstick canopy is at once a very literal insignia for the restaurant, and a sensitive culmination of its metaphors
