Balance of craft and innovation

Poltrona Frau celebrates the union of art, craftsmanship, and design with a new collaboration featuring Japanese ceramic artist and architect Yuki Nara. This project is part of the brand's broader commitment to the world of art, highlighting the excellence of Italian design and Poltrona Frau's renowned expertise, enriched by handcrafted ceramics and the innovative vision of a contemporary artist.

Yuki Nara

A direct descendant of the Ohi family, renowned for producing Ohi-yaki ceramics for over 360 years, Yuki Nara brings tradition into his artistic search for innovative forms, creating unique interior design vases. His works uniquely explore the boundaries between ceramics and architecture, with a particular focus on the dialogue between humans and nature.

A boundary is not a simple line

When I think about things, I always think about the ‘boundaries’ that surround them. In other words, I look for the space in ‘between.’ Architecture and ceramics, digital and analog, inside and outside, artificial and natural, chaos and order. It’s not something that can be clearly distinguished, like 0 and 1 in digital code, like black and white. Rather, an infinity of degrees actually exists between 0 and 1, and an infinite grading of shades exist between black and white.

- Yuki Nara

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Hybridization

Nara has innovated the realm of artistic ceramics with a technique he calls "hybridization." His journey has led him to explore the infinite potential of a dialogue between opposites, defining a new way of experiencing ceramics: light and permeable, it preserves the atmosphere of places and becomes a warm boundary that gently connects, rather than separates, the inside and the outside.

Hybridization

Nara has innovated the realm of artistic ceramics with a technique he calls "hybridization." His journey has led him to explore the infinite potential of a dialogue between opposites, defining a new way of experiencing ceramics: light and permeable, it preserves the atmosphere of places and becomes a warm boundary that gently connects, rather than separates, the inside and the outside.
Yuki Nara meets Poltrona Frau
BONE FLOWER
The Bone Flower collection by Yuki Nara includes ceramic vases with sinuous and detailed shapes, created by combining traditional Ohi techniques and architectural design technologies such as 3D CAD. The ceramic panels, resembling bones, intertwine in vibrant compositions, emanating a primal vitality where the "boundary" between inside and outside becomes increasingly blurred.
Yuki Nara meets Poltrona Frau
Pelle Frau® Leather Pedestal
The ceramic vases are presented on a special pedestal designed by Yuki Nara and made by Poltrona Frau. Inspired by the structure of trees and forests, its design captures the metaphor of growth and development, deconstructing roots, trunks, branches, and leaves into a work of great aesthetic balance. Upholstered in Pelle Frau® SC Colorsphere® Impact Less, in the Quarzo Fumé color, the pedestal blends perfectly with the ceramic work, creating a harmonious and visually striking ensemble.