A room is a decision about how you want to be tired at the end of the day.

I live in forty-eight square metres in Tokyo with one good chair and far too many bowls, so I have had to mean that. I trained as an architect and left to write, which my teachers took badly. Uchi (内) means inside, and it means home: the room you come back to. The palette comes after the tiredness. So does the name on the lamp.

This is where I keep what the world's rooms are doing. Around seventy sources, read in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, French and English: an apartment in Seoul, a house outside Taipei, a Copenhagen showroom seen from here rather than from Denmark. East first, because east is where I am sitting.

Each story is a headline, an excerpt of a few lines, one photograph and a link to whoever did the work. We never reprint the piece, and the photograph belongs to the person who took it. When a room was written up in Korean or Italian it stays in Korean or Italian here; the link takes you to the writer's own words.

I am not trying to be complete. I am trying to notice.

— Mio Tachibana, Tokyo

← Uchi Archive

Architectural Digest

Where to Buy Vintage Lamps (2026): 1stDibs, Etsy, and More

10.31

Ones that are just a savvy keyword search away

Lighting Vintage & mid-century Shopping

Read at Architectural Digest ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Where to Buy Vintage Lamps (2026): 1stDibs, Etsy, and More

Related

retro cocktail bar with multi-chrome lighting and curved steel hides behind barcelona focacceria Designboom

10 Best Bedside Lamps & Table Lamps (2026) Architectural Digest

The Best Dining Room Lighting Ideas to Set Your Space Aglow Architectural Digest

How IDGroup Created a Contemporary Los Angeles Home with the Soul of a Midcentury Original Homes & Gardens

Designers Say These 6 Paint Colors Are the Secret to a More Vintage-Looking Home House Beautiful

Craig Ellwood’s Kubly House is for sale, a prime slice of mid-century modern in Pasadena Wallpaper*