Old + New: Designing The Koji Club

Greeting from the bottom of my rabbit hole. I am deep in the design details of The Koji Club right now. I fall asleep every night obsessively scrolling my 100k photos of Japan on my iPhone to catch the tiniest details of my trips to add to our new corner of the world. Modern noren designs, lace curtains and doilies, silverware rests, earthenware, etc.

Our club is safe space to celebrate, learn about and drink good sake. The physical space chosen because it looks like old Kyoto with reclaimed dark wood and a stone wall embedded into the wall. It is designed like it belongs in modern day Kyoto. Hopefully someday, we will have a location in Kyoto… or Yoyogi Park in Tokyo next to Fuglen. (Fuglen is a coffee roastery and cafe based in Norway with a gorgeous outpost in Tokyo. Our bar is modeled after their bar.)

What does modern Kyoto look like?
During my last trip in 2017, a major theme is Danish Mid Century design juxtaposed with old Japanese architecture filled with warmth using lots of natural woods, moody earth/jewel tones and accented with sophisticated, sleek modern accents (mirrors, clocks, door pulls). The combination of old and new creates a timeless feeling, where you could be in the 1970’s but everything… works and feels very new. This idea of old but new ended up guiding us through our design decision making process… for example, there were no trips to the Brimfield antiques fair. This trip lingered in our minds for the longest time but the idea of buying something we could not find again felt like an unsustainable rabbit hole for a business. But our silverware is antique looking (brushed baguette) and our Kinto sepia tea cups have a very vintage vibe.

The only design purchase that felt like a slight risk were our plates, but they were so full of fate it was impossible to pass them up. The day we arrived in Venice (Los Angeles), we stopped at Gjusta Goods for a quick tour before heading to dinner in Bel Air. The vintage Japanese earthenware plates from the Gjelina Group’s recently closed izakaya “MTN” had just been stocked on the back table of the shop. A serendipitous event, we bought a dozen and the moment we got in the car to drive to dinner, fully regretted not buying them all. The very next morning, we did.

Once we arrived home in Boston, our friends and collaborators at Myrth Ceramics launched their new glazes, all of which perfectly matched our new earthenware. A wink from the universe.

Why did we chose this aesthetic for the bar?
This connection to mid century modern Japan and color palate of moody earthy jewel tones is gorgeous and also a nod to an important period of time for women in the country. A brave moment in post-war Japan called “uman ribu” (women’s lib).

“…in sync with radical feminist movements in the United States and elsewhere, catalyzing a resurgence of feminist activism through the 1970s and beyond. The activists forwarded a comprehensive critique of the male-dominated nature of modern Japan, arguing for a fundamental change of the political-economic system and culture of the society. What distinguished them from previous feminist movements was their emphasis on the liberation of sex (性の解放 sei no kaihō). They did not aim for equality with men, but rather focused on the fact that men should also be liberated from the oppressive aspects of a patriarchal and capitalist system.” - Wikipedia

The Koji Club channels this energy in to it’s own mission. This little brick and mortar is a safe space to celebrate a very old beverage and pursue very new ideas within a very old city.

Welcome to the Koji Club, let’s do something new.