Without Reservation: restaurant seating from Conde House
Brand story by Simon Keane-Cowell
Hokkaido, Japan
06.03.20
Never loud and attention-grabbing but always articulate and elegant, Conde House’s carefully crafted, Made-in-Japan wood seating provides the perfect dining companion.
You are what you sit on: dining experiences in Japan – and increasingly internationally – continue to feature Conde House's wood seating on the menu, thanks to its visual lightness, timeless formal quality and supreme ergonomics
You are what you sit on: dining experiences in Japan – and increasingly internationally – continue to feature Conde House's wood seating on the menu, thanks to its visual lightness, timeless formal quality and supreme ergonomics
×If you've ever eaten at a restaurant in Japan, you may well have sat on a Conde House chair. You'd be forgiven for not remembering, so compelling is Japanese cuisine in its unique taste and exquisite visual presentation. (Over a three-day trip to Tokyo recently, I must have consumed almost every type of creature you care to find in the sea, both great and small.)
The fact you may not recall the furniture that supported you during such gastronomic delights isn't a cause for heartburn at Conde House. You see, Japan's leading manufacturer of furniture in wood – which has carved out (no pun intended) a position in the global market for painstakingly crafted products – isn’t one to shout.
'With its entire production located on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, Conde House’s furniture serves to enhance the experience of hospitality spaces'
In business for over 50 years, with its entire production located on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, Conde House’s chairs, as well as tables and sofas, serve to enhance the experience of hospitality spaces through their natural-material expression and ergonomically driven, often optically light, forms. It’s more a case of relaxed dining partner than all-singing-and-all-dancing dinner theatre.
Here are just three of the latest restaurant projects to incorporate Conde House products into their design schemes, as a means of creating visual elegance and a sense of harmony.
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The cantilevered Fratello di Mikuni restaurant in Kamikawa, Japan, offers panoramic views of the local mountains, with Conde House's Petra armchairs and side chairs throughout the dining space continuing the sophisticated connection with nature
The cantilevered Fratello di Mikuni restaurant in Kamikawa, Japan, offers panoramic views of the local mountains, with Conde House's Petra armchairs and side chairs throughout the dining space continuing the sophisticated connection with nature
×Fratello di Mikuni
Star dining at Fratello di Mikuni, located in the Japanese town of Kamikawa, comes with a built-in spectacle: the view. Located at the top of a hill, the cantilevered restaurant offers uninterrupted views of the spectacular Daisetsuzan mountains. The connection with nature continues inside via Conde House’s Petra armchairs and side chairs (designed by Yoshimitsu Asakura), which were specified for the dining room. Locally sourced food dovetails here with locally sourced wood, making for a highly specific and mindful experience for guests.
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Reduction is the name of the game at Isono, a sushi restaurant in Hokkaido, where Conde House's Runt Om chairs dovetail with a pared-down, materially harmonious interior-architectural scheme
Reduction is the name of the game at Isono, a sushi restaurant in Hokkaido, where Conde House's Runt Om chairs dovetail with a pared-down, materially harmonious interior-architectural scheme
×Isono
Clean lines meet clean eating at sushi restaurant Isono, in Hokkaido, where a decidedly pared-down aesthetic welcomes diners. When the architects were looking for furniture that would speak to a Japanese idiom – but still articulate a universal, international design language (‘not too Japanese’) – they turned to Conde House’s Runt Om chair, authored by respected Swedish designer and former curator Sture Eng. The result is harmonious dialogue between seating and space.
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At Tokyo's Kikkoman Live Kitchen – a brand-experience destination launched by the eponymous soy-sauce manufacturer – diners sit on Conde House’s BCTD (‘be seated’) bar stools and Kiila stacking chairs, while being entertained by celebrity Japanese chefs
At Tokyo's Kikkoman Live Kitchen – a brand-experience destination launched by the eponymous soy-sauce manufacturer – diners sit on Conde House’s BCTD (‘be seated’) bar stools and Kiila stacking chairs, while being entertained by celebrity Japanese chefs
×Kikkoman Live Kitchen
Anyone who’s anyone knows that Kikkoman soy sauce is the best. The taste buds never lie. When planning its Kikkoman Live Kitchen – a real-time brand-experience destination in Tokyo – to mark its 100th anniversary, the food manufacturer invited Conde House to be one of its best-only project partners. While guests are entertained by a rotating line-up of superstar Japanese chefs, they sit on a pair of Scandinavian-authored, Japanese-fabricated products – Conde House’s BCTD (‘be seated’) bar stool by Danish designer Michael Poulsen and its Kiila stacking chair, developed by Finn Mikko Halonen. The local is truly global.
© Architonic
