Collection: CRAFTED - Voices of the Creators vol.6

Inheriting Kyoto Stone Craftsmanship, Refined by the Spirit of Chanoyu

Just beyond the mountains from Arashiyama, Kyoto, lies the city of Kameoka. SAIDA is located in Hoki, Sogabe-cho, a nature-rich area in central Kameoka. The workshop's history dates back to 1902, during the Meiji period.

“High-quality granite was once quarried from the mountain just behind our workshop, and this area flourished as a village of stone artisans. The stone has since been depleted, but this mountain was also the sole source of Hoki-ishi, a highly prized local stone with a long history,” explains Takaaki Saida, the fifth-generation master of SAIDA.

At the age of 21, Saida decided to carry on the family business and devote himself to the craft. He diligently honed his skills under the previous generation and today runs the only remaining stone workshop in the area, carrying on his work as one of Kyoto's few highly skilled stone artisans.

Stone crafts have long been produced in renowned stone-producing regions throughout Japan. Those made in Kyoto are known as Kyoto Stonework (Kyo Ishi Kogeihin) and are designated as a Traditional Craft by the Japanese government. According to Takaaki, Kyoto's stone artisans are particularly skilled in creating stone lanterns and chozubachi (water basins) for Japanese gardens and roji, the tea gardens leading to a tea room.

“Stone lanterns were originally used to offer pure, sacred light to Buddhist and Shinto deities. It was tea masters such as Sen no Rikyu who came to appreciate in them the beauty of wabi-sabi and a sense of tranquility, and began incorporating them into gardens. Kyoto's stone artisans have inherited this aesthetic sensibility. Even today, when making stone lanterns, we generally look to outstanding examples created before the Muromachi period as honka—original masterpieces that serve as models—and create our own works based on them,” explains Takaaki.

Simply describing the process as “copying” or “reproducing” an original may sound straightforward, but recreating its beauty and presence requires years of experience, a keen eye, and highly refined skills. To evoke the character that comes with age, artisans may deliberately soften outlines and edges or even encourage moss to grow on the stone.

Even more surprisingly, in Kyoto, a single stone artisan carries out every step of the process by hand...! While this allows the artisan to respond to the client's detailed requests, it also reveals an extraordinary sense of pride and dedication to the craft.

Natural Stone Shaped Over Time,
Listening Closely to Its Voice

In Kyoto's world of stone craftsmanship, even a stone lantern weighing as much as 700 kilograms can be completed by a single artisan. To learn about the skills and wisdom involved in working with natural stone—formed over tens of millions of years through volcanic activity and the formation of geological strata—and carving new life into it, we asked Kaito, who began apprenticing under his father, Takaaki, at the end of 2024, to show us part of the process.

On this day, Kaito was working on the kasa, the uppermost roof section of a stone lantern. A cutting machine is used to cut the stone down to roughly the required size, but from that point on, the work is done entirely by hand. Even the elegant curves—the rounded contours and subtle upward sweep—are carved purely by feel.

Skillfully wielding a hatsuri-nomi (stone chisel) and a setto (hammer), Kaito chips away at the stone in a crisp, steady rhythm. Ringing through the semi-open workshop is the clear, high-pitched sound of “kin, kin, kin.” There is something almost musical about it, yet the sound also carries a sense of delicacy and even sacredness.

“Actually, with every strike, I change the direction of the chisel,” says Kaito. “I read the grain of the stone and the direction in which it will split, while listening carefully even to the faintest resonance.”

Rather than trying to overpower or work against the stone, he lets only the weight of the hammer at the moment of impact pass through the chisel. Watching him work, we begin to understand that this is how a stone artisan should approach the craft: listening to the voice of the stone, almost as if engaged in a dialogue with it.

Kaito studied business in the United States during his university years. “At the time, I had no intention of taking over the family business. I didn't even really understand what my father did for a living...” he recalls with a laugh.

Yet while living abroad, he found himself newly drawn to Japanese crafts and the skills of stone artisans. Before returning to Japan, he also completed an internship in garden making in Portland, a city renowned for its Japanese garden.

“A stone lantern truly comes to life when it is part of a garden. I feel that learning how to see and understand a garden first has become an important foundation for the work I do today,” says Kaito.

Rooted in the Local Community, Looking to the World
The Strength of Two Perspectives

Since 2007, SAIDA has continued to introduce Kyoto stone craftsmanship to audiences around the world through exhibitions and workshops overseas. Takaaki traveled alone to various countries, driven by a growing sense of urgency over the declining demand for stonework used in Japanese gardens.

“In my twenties and thirties, I traveled overseas to compete in amateur surfing competitions, so being abroad already felt quite familiar to me. I couldn't speak English, but I relied on my skills and plenty of gestures to get by,” he says with a laugh. “It also made a big difference that my first opportunity came in Italy, a country with a long tradition of stonework. People there responded very positively to what I was doing, and I began to see tremendous possibilities.”

Building on these experiences, SAIDA has also begun working with a team of Kyoto artisans from different fields to support sustainable expansion into overseas markets. In 2026, they also launched workshop visits and field tours in their hometown of Kameoka.

“We want to broaden the community of people who appreciate Kyoto stone craftsmanship so that we can pass it on to the next generation. The best place to start is by helping people understand the place where we're rooted and the skills behind our work,” say Takaaki and Kaito.

“Because we carve freehand, we're confident that if you give us a 30-centimeter block of stone, we can make just about anything. We'd be delighted if seeing us at work makes people think, ‘Stone might actually be interesting,’ or ‘I'd love to have something like this made.’”

In addition to visiting the workshop, the tour includes a walk through the hills behind it. The surrounding area is home to nearly 100 ancient burial mounds dating from the latter half of the sixth century. With their stonework and stone chambers, these kofun can be seen as some of the earliest roots of the region’s stoneworking culture.

An old road that once connected the provinces of Tamba and Settsu also passed through the area, while the mountain pass along the route was itself a source of granite...

One of the great pleasures of the local tour is discovering this rich sense of history and experiencing the “story of the land”—a place that has lived alongside stone for centuries.

Bringing the Warmth of Stone Back into Everyday Life

Takaaki and Kaito continue to take on new challenges as they look toward the future of Kyoto stone craftsmanship. One of these is the development of new interior products designed to bring stone into contemporary everyday life.

In a showroom located in a separate building beside the workshop, prototypes created by Takaaki over the years are displayed in rows, including flower vases, sake vessels, tables, and wine coolers. His innovative ideas are unmistakably his own—from making use of leftover stone with sustainability in mind to combining stone with materials such as wood and glass.

Kaito, who continues to devote himself to mastering the craft each day, is also working on new product development entrusted to him by his father.

“I want to change the perception of stone as something meant for outdoor use—something heavy and difficult to handle,” says Kaito.

The idea of reimagining a sekimori-ishi as an interior object came from Kaito. Traditionally, a sekimori-ishi is made by tying a natural river stone with palm-fiber rope and placing it in a garden as a subtle barrier indicating that an area is off-limits. Kaito has transformed this tradition into a contemporary object, using stoneworking techniques to carve the stone into a rounded form and tying it with beautiful Kyo-kumihimo (Kyoto braided cord).

As we touch the stonework created by father and son, with subtle traces of the hand left by the chisel, we find ourselves imagining a distant time when stone tools were still a part of everyday life...

Perhaps the gentle warmth we feel in their work comes from the richness of handcraft—something that cannot be measured by today's standards of convenience and efficiency—and from a faint memory of the Earth itself, held within stone formed over an almost unimaginable span of time.

CRAFTED Special Program | A Day in Kameoka, Home of Kyoto Stone Artisans

Why not visit Kameoka, the home of stone artisans featured in this article, and experience it for yourself?

Guided by Kaito Saida, a stone artisan at SAIDA, you will explore the local culture of stone through places connected to the area’s history, including a massive stone torii gate handcrafted around 100 years ago and a shrine associated with generations of stone artisans. At the workshop, you will have the opportunity to observe traditional stoneworking techniques and tools up close. You will also grind tencha leaves using a stone mill and enjoy freshly ground matcha.

Walk the land, listen to the artisan, watch the techniques, and touch the stone. Going one step beyond the CRAFTED article, this special one-day tour invites you to experience Kyoto’s stone culture through all five senses.

Tuesday, November 3, 2026 (National Holiday) / Limited to 10 participants per session

→ Tour Details & Reservations