The name is Community Store TO SEE. It's an old, four-story building west of Kyoto Imperial Palace. The first floor is a coffee stand and shop, the second floor is a gallery, and the third and fourth floors are office spaces. What is unusual is that despite being located in Kyoto, nothing from Kyoto can be found inside. The owner Mitsuyuki Nakajima explains. “You can get works made by Kyoto craftsmen in Kyoto. Here, we have works from other prefectures that you can’t otherwise find in Kyoto.”

The store on the first floor deals in richly original products created in various regions of Japan. Made with high standards of craftsmanship and reliable quality, Mr. Nakajima has prepared a collection of these items that he personally recommends as well as clothes and assorted goods that will stand the test of time for their new owners. The shop also sells “Nakajima’s Lifetime Best 10,” a collection of books and manga selected together by Mr. Nakajima and book director Yoshitaka Haba. These are items which are not particularly well-known to most, items that you might not normally think to pick up. Plus, the coffee at their café here features beans from the Hiraya coffee shop in Aichi Prefecture’s Gamagori City and even recreates the way their coffee is prepared. The store also offers literary works from Kyoto-based authors. Because this is a place that emphasizes selling unique items that can’t be found anywhere else, they have original items made just for them. They have even asked Kyoto-based ceramic artist Daisuke Kiyomizu to create a café au lait bowl specially for Community Store TO SEE.

So, it was a photographer who opened this specialist boutique. You might be thinking that this seems like a completely different project for him to have started, but Mr. Nakajima responds that “it’s all the same.” This store takes items such as photographs and books that show information in 2D and displays them in a concrete 3D space. “TO SEE” literally means “viewing with the eyes,” but it also includes the meaning of “seeing and understanding things in a different way.” This is a specialist boutique where the shop owner scrutinizes items he sees and asks himself questions about their value, not simply going on public opinion or well-established perspectives. And, adding to this, Mr. Nakajima says that Community Store TO SEE itself is a kind of medium. Like magazines or websites, this store is a kind of media that expresses something and facilitates the ideas of artists working across Japan. Items created by various people, inspirational ways of living, words and ideas are all shared through this building. “That a building can be perceived as a kind of media” is yet another perspective.

In addition to items we’ve chosen ourselves, we also want to place greater value on items recommended by others as well as clothes or daily goods purchased with an awareness of the ideas behind. This shop is surely another place that you’d want to go and see in Kyoto.