Traditional craft
Osaka Kongo Sudare
大阪金剛簾
Elegant bamboo blinds from southern Osaka, made from the bamboo of Mt Kongo and woven with silk or cotton thread.
Key facts
- Officially recognised
- 8 April 1996
- Type
- Wood and bamboo
- Region
- Kansai
- Official name in Japanese
- 大阪金剛簾
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 大阪市、富田林市、河内長野市
Shade with grace
Osaka Kongo Sudare are graceful, dignified blinds of natural madake bamboo, woven with silk or cotton thread. They are used as room partitions and sunshades and bring a gentle, very Japanese beauty to a room. They are made in Tondabayashi, Kawachinagano and Osaka city in Osaka.
Strips, weave, finish
Making a blind falls into three stages: splitting madake bamboo into fine strips, weaving them together with thread, and finishing.
From the Heian court
Blinds go back to the Heian period: misu, used at court as partitions and decoration, are the ancestors of today's room blinds. Using good bamboo that grows at the foot of Mt Kongo, blind making flourished around present-day Tondabayashi and grew into a production centre. A poem by Princess Nukata in the Manyoshu even describes a blind stirred by the autumn wind.
Good to know
- A sudare is a classic of Japanese summer, cutting the sun while letting the breeze through.
- Look for blinds woven with silk thread for the most refined finish.
Questions travellers ask
What are misu?
Court blinds of the Heian period, used as partitions and decoration, the prototype of room blinds.
What bamboo is used?
Madake, traditionally from the foot of Mt Kongo.
Where it comes from
More crafts from the same area
Local foods from the same area
Heritage stories from the same area
- Hinenosho: a medieval estate next to Kansai Airport
- Kamenose: crossing the landslide heart of the Tatsuta Kodo
- Katsuragi Shugen: where mountain asceticism began
- Kawachinagano: a town where the Middle Ages live on
- Kitamaebune: the merchant ships that made Japan's port towns rich
- Nyonin Koya: the temples where women prayed instead of Mount Koya
- Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage: Japan's 1,300-year journey of the heart
- Takenouchi Kaido and Yokooji: Japan's oldest national road
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.