NATIONAL TREASURES

BUCKET LIST NAKAGAWA MOKKOUGEI

uckets might sound like prosaic items, but the fragrant cypresswood crafted by third-generation cooper Shuji Nakagawa are anything but, with 700 years of carpentry tradition behind them. Nakagawa’s grandfather, a skilled woodworker, founded the family business in the 1960s and was later succeeded by Shuji’s father, Kiyotsugu Nakagawa, who in 2001 was named a “Living National Treasure of Japan.” While Nakagawa senior still oversees the main workshop in downtown Kyoto, his son works out of a studio in Otsu, some 10 kilometers to the east on the shores of Japan’s largest lake. The tools of his trade line the walls: crescent-shaped blades, mallets, and every imaginable shape and size of —Japanese wood planes capable of shaving mere microns off of an uneven surface. Nakagawa makes his buckets—traditionally used for bathing rituals and for storing rice and miso—entirely by hand, from chopping wood blocks into staves that fit together into a perfect circle, to sanding down the edges so that the seams are near invisible. And not only buckets. Keenly aware that the demand for ki-oke has dwindled in modern times, Nakagawa has extended his product line into things like champagne coolers and sushi bowls. He also collaborated in the production of the minimalist Ki-oke Stool—a bucket-shaped seat designed