Sasaki foundry's President Katsuyuki Sasaki selecting type from the shelves. Movable type is made by melting an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony at around 350°C and pouring it into molds. (©Sankei by Katsuyuki Seki)
このページを 日本語 で読む
In a quiet residential neighborhood of Kagurazaka, Tokyo, once lined with printing houses and publishers, sits the Sasaki Type Foundry. The shop has a history of 108 years. Inside, sample prints are displayed on the counter, and old wooden shelves are packed tightly with rows of type.
Movable type refers to the letter blocks used in letterpress printing. The process involves four main steps: casting type from lead alloy, selecting letters from the type cases, arranging them to form a plate, and finally printing. Today, Sasaki is the only shop in Japan that still carries out all of these steps from start to finish.
The shop holds more than seven million pieces of type in about ten varieties. These include Japanese Mincho and Gothic styles, as well as alphabets and symbols. Six automatic type-casting machines, built more than sixty years ago, are still running.
A Century in Kagurazaka
The business was founded in 1917. At its peak, about twenty craftsmen worked here. The shop specialized in casting and selling type before later expanding into printing.
The current president, Katsuyuki Sasaki, 50, represents the fourth generation. At 36, he left his career in architecture to take over the family business from his father, Seiichi, now 83. He was driven by the wish "not to let the culture of movable type disappear, and to keep the shop alive."
"Letterpress printing gives even the smallest characters a sharpness and a texture of ink that digital printing can't reproduce," Katsuyuki says.
He continues to learn the craft of casting and setting type, one character at a time, from his father. In an age of screens and printers, when the use of movable type has sharply declined, the type assembled by craftsmen still carries a warmth that feels alive.
RELATED:
- Keeping Classic Cars Alive: A Young Mechanic's Dream in Yokohama
- A Tokyo Bathhouse Where Firewood Heats the Soul
- The Nostalgic Shopping Street Facing Redevelopment in Tokyo
Author: Katsuyuki Seki, The Sankei Shimbun
このページを 日本語 で読む
