𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆: 𝗕𝗮𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗠𝗯𝗟é - 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗼 𝗞𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗮, 𝟭𝟵𝟴𝟴. [ @comble.bar ]
Hidden in Shizuoka, Japan, Bar CoMbLé is one of the rare interiors by Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata that still survives today.
Designed in 1988, during the final years of Kuramata’s career and at the height of Japan’s late bubble era, the bar reflects his signature approach to space - bold colour contrasts, translucent materials, and a sense of visual lightness that makes the interior feel almost immaterial.
Curved transparent ceiling elements hover above vivid red walls, while bright accents and acrylic details create a dreamlike environment that feels both futuristic and playful. Like many of Kuramata’s interiors, the space was conceived as a complete composition, where furniture, colour, light, and material work together as one unified design.
More than three decades later, the bar continues to operate under owner + bartender Masahiko Nakayama, who has focused on preserving the interior almost exactly as it was designed - one reason the bar remains one of the very few surviving Kuramata interiors still accessible to the public.
A preserved fragment of Kuramata’s radical vision of space.
Photography @armand.dasilva