Rurbanism Tokyo Store — Concept

Rurbanism explores new relationships between objects and everyday life through contemporary ceramics, furniture, lighting, music, and the ways in which we live.

In September 2026, we will open our first permanent space in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Tokyo. — Rurbanism Tokyo Store.

The name Rurbanism comes from two seemingly different worlds: Rural and Urban.

It reflects our desire to move between these two environments and discover a different kind of richness that exists somewhere in between.

The city is a place where people and cultures intersect, where new ideas and expressions are constantly emerging.

The countryside offers another sense of time — a slower rhythm that allows us to notice the changing seasons, the smell of the earth, and subtle shifts in light and wind.

For us, it is not about choosing one over the other.

It is about moving between them.

Bringing a sense of nature and its rhythms into the city, while discovering an urban sensibility within the rural landscape.

We are drawn to the ambiguity that emerges somewhere along that boundary.

Rurbanism Tokyo Store exists within this in-between space.

What we wanted to create is neither simply a store for selling objects, nor a gallery solely for viewing them.

Ceramics and objects shaped by the hands of artists.
Furniture that has traveled through decades and remains with us today.
Lighting that shapes the atmosphere around us.
Music that moves through the space.

Objects born in different places and belonging to different moments in time come together within a single environment.

Old and new.
Urban and natural.
The designed and the handmade.
Refined beauty and subtle irregularity.

We are interested in discovering relationships between things that may at first appear unrelated — choosing and bringing them together through our own intuition.

From those relationships, a landscape begins to emerge that belongs uniquely to each person.

The store brings together contemporary ceramics with furniture by Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Chapo, Poul Kjærholm, Alvar Aalto, Hans J. Wegner, and others whose work helped shape twentieth-century design. Rurbanism Tokyo store image.pdf

These pieces coexist with the work of contemporary ceramic artists, illuminated by the soft light of Santa & Cole and accompanied by sound from 1970s ALTEC Valencia speakers. Rurbanism Tokyo store image.pdf

But what matters to us is not simply the name, provenance, or value of each object.

Placing a single flower in a vase.
Drinking coffee from a cup you love.
Sitting in a chair and listening to music.

Things that may not be essential to the practical routines of everyday life.

And yet, they can subtly change the way we experience time, awaken our senses, and bring a certain richness to how we live.

Choosing something simply because you find it beautiful.
Being drawn to something slightly strange.
Wanting to keep something close, even without knowing exactly why.

At Rurbanism, we want to leave room for those individual instincts.

Rurbanism Tokyo Store is a place to encounter these small choices.

Objects carry within them the time of the people who made them.

Something made by human hands leaves its maker and enters someone else’s life.

It is used, it gathers time, and perhaps one day it is passed forward again into another life and another time.

For us, introducing an object also means becoming part of that continuity — connecting one moment in time to the next.

To encounter objects, and to spend time living with them.

And through those accumulated moments, to gradually discover a landscape of living that feels uniquely your own.

A place to belong.

A place within the city where time moves just a little differently.

A place to pause within the rhythm of urban life — to touch an object, notice the light, listen to the sound, and imagine, for a moment, how you might want to live.

We hope that those who visit will encounter something — an object, a feeling, a small idea — that they want to carry back into their everyday lives.

Always searching for the richness that exists somewhere between the urban and the rural.

From Rurbanism Tokyo Store, we hope to propose new landscapes for living.