作り手のこだわり『市松模様』

Book-Matched Geometry Created from a Single Wood Species

When creating chequered patterns using veneer, MORI KOUGEI uses two fundamentally different construction methods.

One approach is based on a unique optical effect found in natural wood: the way wood appears to change colour depending on the angle of light.

By rotating the grain direction of adjacent blocks by 90 degrees, subtle contrasts emerge even though the material itself is the same species.

In addition, whether the grain is aligned horizontally to the square edge or diagonally across it creates a completely different visual expression.

The chequered pattern shown in these images uses the latter approach.

However, the design goes beyond simply arranging the grain diagonally. Each veneer piece is carefully book-matched, allowing the grain to connect symmetrically in all directions.

The white ash lacquer-finished plate shown here contains 36 individual blocks, all constructed through continuous book-matching.

Because the same continuous grain sections are precisely unfolded from consecutive veneer sheets, the resulting pattern creates clear diamond-shaped geometry through the contrast of the straight grain itself.

Constructing a pattern using only grain direction would be comparatively simple.

But MORI KOUGEI intentionally chooses a far more complex process — aligning expanding and contracting natural wood like a puzzle, developing construction methods specifically for each pattern.

Much of this effort may never be immediately visible. In many ways, it is a craftsman’s own obsession with continuity, symmetry, and precision.

Yet this kind of expression is only possible because veneer preserves a naturally continuous grain structure.

Even when the same pattern repeats, small natural variations remain. That subtle irregularity within a minimal geometry is one of the qualities we find most beautiful.