Tendo Mokko: Furniture to Hand Down from Generation to Generation

For almost eight decades, Tendo Mokko has been producing plywood furniture… and collectors are still eagerly snapping up the company’s creations.

The company was founded in 1940 in Tendo, a historic woodworking town in Japan. It uses the moulded plywood method, a technique which enables woodworkers to create lines and forms that could never be achieved with natural wood, and as such the factory is rapidly becoming one of the engines for economic growth in the Yamagata region.

By joining forces with renowned artists like the designers Isamu Kenmochi and Sori Yanagi (the people behind the iconic butterfly stool), or the architects Kenzo Tange and Arata Isozaki, Tendo Mokko has made style one of the key elements of its collections. The company is also committed to respecting materials in order to make the best use of them, so the artisans leave their wood to rest for five years before working with it. All of Tendo Mokko’s creations, whether made from walnut, oak, sapelli, beech or Japanese cedar or cypress, bring together both beauty and lightness.

Taking inspiration from the willow which bends but never breaks, Tendo Mokko creates pieces of furniture which can be handed down from generation to generation. A marker of their era but already timeless, they are true time-travellers which have already achieved cult status.