Hiroshima Prefecture is known as a producer of high-quality furniture. Maruni Wood Industry, Inc. has been in the furniture business for eighty years. They were a well-known maker of good quality mass-produced furniture for a long time. This week we take a look at a man descended from the founder of Maruni Wood Industry who is riding out the furniture industry slump with panache.
Interviewed by Takafumi Suzuki
Translated by Claire Tanaka
First off, could you tell me a bit about how Maruni Wood Industry got started?
Takeo Yamanaka was the founder of this company. He loved everything about wood ever since he was a boy; its straightness and curved-ness, its thinness and thickness. He learned machine theory in trade school, and he wanted to put his studies into practice with wood as his material. After he graduated, he taught himself German and studied European technical manuals, and opened the Yamanaka Research Center with five other craftsmen. Then, in 1928, he founded the Showa Mageki Kojo (the Showa Bentwood Factory), the precursor to Maruni. They specialized in the bending of lumber, which was an uncommon skill at that time, and they were heavy proponents of industrializing skills which were seen as mere craftwork at that time. I think they were rather ahead of their time.
The cornerstone laid by the founder has really set Maruni up for what it has become today.
The pioneer spirit of the founding members lives on today at Maruni. When our craftsmen have a bit to drink and start talking about woodworking techniques, they get really fired up. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but we’ve got such a high level of technical workmanship here that you could say that the Maruni name is synonymous with woodworking excellence. Say some well-known English furniture maker makes a 500,000 yen high-end sofa, we could make a sofa of the same level of quality for 300,000 yen. For quality, high-end, classical furniture, we are up there with the best of them. Our staff carry that competitive spirit with them.
You are a blood relation of the founder of Maruni, so I imagine you have a similar special relationship with furniture?
The founder was my grandfather, but in my case I was never interested in furniture at all (laughs). I only got involved in the company in 2000. After I graduated from university in Tokyo, I went to work at a bank, and I processed bad loans for years. For the first four years after I was asked to help out here, it was really tough times, lots of factory consolidation and reducing staff. It’s not easy to lay someone off who has been working for the company for 35 years.
Banking and furniture manufacture must be worlds apart.
Yes. At the bank, I was operating at the level of “10 billion yen lost, 2 billion yen recovered”. My sense of the value of money had become totally numb. At that time in my life, money meant nothing more to me than numbers on a page. When I joined this company, I was suddenly surrounded by people with a pure love for wood and for making things. The people here infected me with their enthusiasm and straightforward attitudes, and I began to feel the fun in making things for myself. But ever since cut-rate goods started coming in from overseas, the furniture business has been going downhill. I had to take action to keep Maruni from getting into trouble.
Handling the tools with nimble fingers
Each step in the process is done with care
Concentrating hard on the task at hand
Three technicians working in unison
So are you talking about actions other than factory consolidation and staff reductions?
Yes, that’s right. The big catalyst was something called the Next Maruni Project. This project started when I asked designer and architect Masayuki Kurokawa for some advice. I told him about the situation at Maruni, and a couple of weeks later I got an e-mail from Kurokawa, saying “How about you take the passion and technical skill of Maruni and do a project like this?”
Could you give me a short description of the nextmaruni Project?
It is a long-term project based on a Japanese aesthetic with a fusion of industry and culture. We’ve had participating designers return to the basic questions of “What is design, what is service, what is industry, what is a chair?” The first installation in the project was the “Next Maruni 12 Chairs / Dialogue with Japanese Aesthetic”. We asked 11 well-known designers to participate, and held an international design competition where the winner’s entry was produced as the 12th contribution. The participants were: Alberto Meda, Shin and Tomoko Azumi, Harri Koskinen, Jasper Morrison , Kanji Ueki, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, Masayuki Kurokawa, Michele de Lucchi , Naoto Fukasawa , Shigeru Uchida, Sean Yoo, and Tamotsu Yagi.
Alberto Meda’s design
Jasper Morrison’s design
Michele de Lucchi’s design
Naoto Fukasawa’s design
That’s a veritable Who’s Who of the design world!
Yes. Yes it is. But you know, I’m embarrassed to say this, but at the time neither myself nor the other people at the company had heard of any of these people. I think that’s why we were able to get the work done without freaking out too badly (laughs). When we announced our project in 2005, our story was picked up by about two or three hundred different media outlets, and that’s when I realized how famous everyone was. When we went to the Milano Salone in Italy, it was a totally different world than what Maruni had been operating in, and we were all, “Woah, this kind of world exists!?” and our little naïve minds got a big jolt. Our company was on the verge of collapsing, and the participating designers agreed to join on a royalty contract basis; for that I am really grateful. The designers seemed to enjoy the back-and-forth with our highly skilled craftsmen. Our craftsmen may be hicks from the sticks, but they’ve got a lot of pride (laughs). They would just say whatever they thought, like, “There’s no way that’ll maintain structural integrity, no way!” It seems that the big-name designers were actually quite comfortable with that kind of work environment.
After your project had such a big impact outside the company, did anything change with the attitude of the company staff?
This project was so unlike anything we’d done before, so at first a lot of the staff had the attitude of “What are you roping us into?!” but little by little, they started to say “Now we’re on to something new!” and that feeling began to spread within the company. Even now, some staff still say “How does something like this even sell??” but when I see the strength tests we hold every Saturday, I feel glad that we did this project. I mean, even though it’s supposed to be their day off, they come to the factory with such smiling faces. I think that something so pure really has a certain strength. When we got a fax from Jasper Morrison that said “This leg is OK”, the staff brought it to me, grinning and yelling, “Takeshi! Takeshi! Look at this!” It’s times like that when I feel that the act of making something is really special, something that all the staff, all the participants can share. I hope we can have something even more exciting and fun with the next project.
So what do you think is going to be the most important factor in furniture-making from here on?
There are a lot of different processes involved in furniture making. It takes a lot of people and a lot of labor to make the product. I think it’s most important to be flexible in order to meet people’s needs. I think what we have to focus on now is not so much mass-production, but small-scale production of a wide variety of products.
Maruni Wood Industry, Inc.
Shirasago 24, Yuki-cho, Saeki-ku
Hiroshima City, Hiroshima
Takeshi Yamanaka
President’s Office Staff, Development Headquarters
News!! Maruni New Project launched
Maruni Wood Industry (Head Office: Saeki-ku. Hiroshima City) which will mark 80th year in business this year in 2008, has just announced a new collection in collaboration with Naoto Fukasawa. The company announced two different series: “TRADITIONAL SERIES” is the furniture collection from Maruni that has been refined and loved for many years, and another, “HIROSHIMA” is a totally new line. The products will be on show at Gallery le
bain in Nishiazabu, Tokyo, until 10th Feb 2008. Please check it out!
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PingMag MAKE is the sister site to PingMag. We use an interview format to put the spotlight on a wide range of people active in rural areas. We document the voices of these unknown heroes and broadcast them to the world. It’s the Japan-based magazine about people and making things, coming out once a week. We’re passing on the passion, ideas, skills, and life stories of people who are building today and exploring tomorrow: craftsmen, engineers, entrepreneurs, and inventors. Stay tuned!
Important Notice
31 Dec 2008
Looking at Tradition with a Scientific Heart: Ootsuji Asahi-do
16 Dec 2008
The Adventures of the Japan-made T-shirts: Kume
9 Dec 2008
Tying the Knot: Kikuyu
2 Dec 2008
The Stone Merchant: Sato Teiseki ten
25 Nov 2008
Preserving the Essence of the Kiri Tansu: Ogura Tansu Ten
18 Nov 2008
Natural Materials and Design: Tsuruya Shoten
11 Nov 2008
Learning From a Young Master: Ceramic Artist Ryota Aoki
4 Nov 2008
Tiny Works of Shogi Art: Tendo Satoh Takashi Shouten
28 Oct 2008
Tada Mokko: A Woodcrafter’s Tale
21 Oct 2008
The story behind the Mauruni Wood Industry,Inc. is truly inspiring for anyone who works with their hands.
Down to Earth,practical workers with a passion for what they do adds beauty to this world for which I thank them for.
I hope to buy some of their furniture one day.
Wonderful to read!
Emma Howard,Hawaii
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