Aesop Ikebukuro, situated within LUMINE Ikebukuro shopping centre in Tokyo, uses a restrained palette of light blues, beiges and browns to usher visitors into the quiet folds of the store—a welcome interlude amid the bustling mall. The bold linear and geometrical structures of the design were inspired by Tokyo’s erstwhile Imperial Hotel, Frank Lloyd Wright’s bygone masterpiece, which featured striking slabs of Oya stone.
Mottled Oya stone offcuts, a humble byproduct of the larger slabs that are commonly used in Japanese gardens and pathways, stack and pile upon each other to form the interior walls of the store. This volcanic rock, found only beneath the city of Utsunomiya, provided the literal bedrock for all of Wright's designs in the area. Here, it is used most prominently on such focal points as the cantilevered product display slabs visible when approaching the store, and the basins that seem to levitate within. Referencing the emphasised horizontal lines of the Prairie School style, these features cement the sense of harmonious pleasure passers-by can uncover inside.