Andon Lamp · warm 2700 K

West alcove, lit until ten

Three rooms are lit. The stone sill stays dark as the interval. Touch a pane of the lantern, or its row, and that room catches and glows.

Stone sill · 7 lux · dark by choice

RoomStateLux

West alcoveLit42

Paper screenRisingLit2840

Cedar shelfLit39

Stone sillShadowLit736

A cedar andon with four washi tiers; three glow warm and the lowest is dark paper.

Ma · East bay

An evening, one room at a time

Andon lights a house the way you walk through it. The paper screen rises at dusk, the alcove comes up when tea is poured, the shelf holds reading light, and the stone sill is left dark, because the dark is part of the room.

  1. Paper screenRises over twenty minutes while the garden goes grey28
  2. West alcoveLit for tea; the scroll and the camellia take the light42
  3. Cedar shelfReading light on the lower shelf only39
  4. Stone sillNowHeld in shadow: the interval between the rooms7
  5. Cedar shelfDims when the kettle goes quiet12
  6. West alcoveLast out; the house goes to night0

Sunset in Gifu tonight is 17:36. Andon moves the first light with it, a minute or two each day.

The paper does the dimming

Each tier is a pane of Mino kozo washi, laid by hand in Gifu. Its long fibres hold the light and spread it, so a room at 28 lux reads as a glow and never as a bulb. When a tier goes dark the paper turns the warm grey of its own fibres, not black.

Paper
Mino kozo washi, 28 g/m², hand-laid
Frame
Kiso cedar, oiled, square mortise joints
Lamp
One 2700 K filament, 4 W, dimmed per tier
Tiers
Four, one to a room, top to bottom as you walk
Height
64 cm on four short legs

Four rooms in the east bay

The lantern stands where the rooms meet. Its top tier faces the alcove and its lowest faces the sill, so the lamp reads the same way as the plan.

Andon · four tiers West alcove42 lux · Lit Paper screen28 lux · Rising Cedar shelf39 lux · Lit Stone sill7 lux · Shadow Tatami, eight mats Garden
Lit rooms are filled by their lux: the alcove at 42, the shelf at 39, the screen at 28. The sill is left unfilled; seven lux is starlight through the screen, and the eye rests there between rooms.

Lux tonight, brightest first

  • West alcove42
  • Cedar shelf39
  • Paper screen28
  • Stone sill7

Set the alcove for tomorrow

A room is three choices: how bright, how warm, and until when. Andon keeps the rest, and moves the first light with the sunset.

West alcove at 42 lux, lamp warm, lit from tea until ten.

Brightness Shadow42 luxFull, 72
Warmth
Copy last night

We stopped switching lamps on. The house lights itself in the order we walk through it, and the sill stays dark for the cat.

Keiko Arai, who keeps Kogetsu-an in Kyoto