Perspective: Vol.1 Kanda Keita, Interior Designer

Perspective is a project that aims to give a multifaceted, bird's-eye view of things through communication via products.

For our first interview, we spoke to interior designer Kanda Keita. What does Leather Wrapped Stone mean to him? We visited his office in Asakusabashi.

Just the right relationship.

How are leather stones used?

I usually keep it at home as an object and occasionally pick it up. I like to have it on my desk and touch it all the time, but I like the relationship with it just enough to touch it once in a while.

Leather products are fun to touch. When you touch it regularly, it gets shiny. If anything, leather products make you want to soak them in oil and nurture them. When I used to play football, I liked to polish my spikes. Before a game, I would polish my leather spikes so beautifully that they shone. When I was a bit older, I enjoyed polishing leather shoes. I only do maintenance when I feel like it, but polishing leather is calming. It deepens my love for it, I feel like I'm doing something good for the leather, and I can see the results immediately.

Yes, leather maintenance is an obsession.

I've always had a habit of keeping my head on all the time. I tend to dream about being busy with work even when I'm asleep because I'm constantly thinking about it. Maybe that's why I really like work that I can immerse myself in silently. If I'm mindlessly working with my hands, there's some kind of result, and maybe it relaxes me.

Do you also maintain leather stones?

The leather stones have been oiled several times. But less often. Rather than soaking them in maintenance oil, I prefer to touch them with my hands from time to time to soak up my own oil.

A kind of receptacle.

What attracts you to leather stones?

Leather stones are good for receiving. There is a range of ways in which it can be received. For example, if you give a leather stone to someone, what you give them is neither a stone nor a leather product. If you introduce it to someone and explain that there is a stone inside, they wonder what kind of stone is inside and why you put the stone inside. You can imagine a lot of things from the stone as it is, not wrapped in leather, but it is the fact that you can't see the stone because it is wrapped that makes it imaginative. Some people enjoy holding them in their hands, others use them as paperweights, and it is interesting to see what each person can find in them, depending on their sensibilities.

You have been stroking the leather stone for a long time now.

I like the way the front and back are connected in this single piece of leather, and the lines from the point where they are connected to the edge of the leather. I like the lines that don't look like they could be drawn on a design drawing.

What is being asked for now.

The leather stone fits comfortably in this way of holding (thumb and forefinger on the sides and middle finger on the bottom). The whole thing, including the back of the stone, fits in my hand. It makes you want to throw it.

Like a stone for draining water.

Yes, yes. Although I don't actually throw it. But there are positions where you feel at home when you touch it like this. In that sense, there are two sides to it. The position I'm in now is the A side, and the B side feels a bit uncomfortable. I feel like I can move it all the time, looking for a position where I feel at home.

It may be of concern because it is an unexpected form, a form that is not consciously created.

Maybe it is also good that it is easy to understand and is a natural object. I feel like I can put some distance between myself and it. It could be about being modern. It should be natural, not too made up, not too manipulated.

It's the word of the moment.

Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think people are tired of it. They are tired of things that have been made too much. That's why it's easier to accept things that are made naturally. If the shape of the leather stone had been deliberately designed, I might feel differently about it.

I feel that the feeling that you can't beat natural forms is something universal that people have always had. I also have that feeling when I try to make things, and I affirm it unconditionally.

Even in interior design, there is now a trend in favour of solidity and texture. How to use the natural state is what is required nowadays.

Things exist as if they were alive.

I remember that when I was little, I used to perceive things as anthropomorphic. I loved them so much that I hated it when they broke, and I treated things as if they were alive. That's why I didn't like people who treated things roughly. However, I'm not a polite person myself, so I can't say much about other people. I've always had the feeling that I don't want to do things that hurt things.

I think I was also very attached to my house. When I was in the upper grades of primary school, I was very unhappy when I realised that my grandfather's house would one day be gone. I have always been attached, or rather obsessed, with my house.

This is a selfish request, but I would like to have my own stone wrapped in leather. Like a stone from a place that I have a special place in my heart.

That is a big responsibility.

It's a personal story, but I know that my family home will be gone when the generations change. If I know it will be gone, I would like to use the stones from there to make a leather stone. Someone might say that I should just leave it there without making it into a leather stone.

But I still wouldn't touch it much if it was stone intact. In terms of wanting to touch it, I still feel like I want it to be in a state where it is wrapped in the texture of leather and placed there.