Ōya Ishi Ichirinzashi Vase

Ōya Ishi 大谷石: a memento from an Olympics which nearly never was.

These unusual vases are carved by artisans from rare Ōya-ishi stone, the material of choice for VIP sections of Kengo Kuma’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic stadium.

The stone all comes from Ōya, a small town carved into the rockface, in the Tochigi region of Japan.

This coveted material has been a favourite of architects for decades: Kenzo Tange, Togo Murano, Tadao Ando, Kazuo Shinohara and Kisho Kurokawa all incorporated Ōya Ishi into their buildings. The Shimono Kokubunji Temple and Utsunomiya Castle both feature the stone.

Modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright also took an immediate liking to Ōya Ishi and used it extensively for Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel- the facades, the lobby, interior motifs and even decoration- and again later in his Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan School.

No wonder that Frank Lloyd Wright fell in love with the stuff: each piece has a rich texture of grey stone, radiant green minerals and tufts of ‘miso’- darker volcanic ash- a unique expression of the rockface. Ōya Ishi is a natural source of Zeolite minerals, believed to purify the air and create a calming atmosphere. Over time these minerals seep out of the rock, leaving interesting pockmarks and cavities.

These bud vases have been carved to the principles of wabi-sabi. The stone is left in its natural form, without much polishing, allowing its aged, craggy surface and pleasing hues of powdered grey and green to take centre stage.

Comes gift boxed with a separate stand and a test tube (plastic for safety) in which to pop your stems.