Japanese nameくわな鋳物
In Kuwana, Mie Prefecture, molten metal moves through molds into pots, machine parts, shrine fittings, wind chimes, and manhole covers shaped by nearby Komukai sand and local foundry work.
Information updated 69 days ago
3 images【クーポン対象 5/27 10:59まで】 ヤマサキデザインワークス 蚊遣り 蚊やり アイアン おしゃれ 蚊取り線香入れ 蚊遣器 くわな鋳物 鉄 鋳物 日本製 黒 ブラック 和風 和柄 山崎宏 スワミヤ miya suwa YAMASAKI DESIGN WORKS
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Kuwana castings begin with a clear physical act: metal is melted, poured into a mold, and left to harden. In this castle town in Mie Prefecture, the early layer is said to reach the Edo period, when Honda Tadakatsu became lord of Kuwana and began gun production; lanterns, temple bells, farm tools, and pots were also made in the town. In the Meiji period, sand suited to green-sand molding was found in nearby Komukai, now part of Asahi Town, giving daily-use casting a larger production base around Kuwana.
Casting is the act and product of melting metal, pouring it into a mold, and letting it harden. In Kuwana, that basic action has produced pots, kettles, stove mouths, irons, lanterns, temple bells, farm tools, machine castings, construction castings, and civil-engineering pieces such as manhole covers. The product family is practical at several scales: a pot over heat, a street cover underfoot, a commercial gas stove in use, and a machine part inside equipment.
The beginning of Kuwana casting is said to be linked to Honda Tadakatsu, who began gun production after becoming lord of Kuwana in the Edo period. Around that early layer, Kuwana also made lanterns, temple bells, farm tools, and pots. Those objects give the word tradition a concrete meaning here: a gun barrel, a bell in a temple precinct, a tool for field work, and a cooking pot shaped from metal in a mold.
In 1887, casting sand suited to the green-sand method was found in Komukai, a neighboring area now identified as Komukai in Asahi Town, Mie District. The method used naturally occurring sand for molding and supported lower-cost, larger-scale production. From that point, Kuwana made pig-iron household castings such as pots, kettles, stove mouths, and irons, tying the area’s manufacturing rhythm to a nearby material found in the ground.
From 1903, Kuwana began making machine castings such as noodle-making machines and waterworks equipment, widening the product range beyond household goods. The phrase pairing eastern Kawaguchi with western Kuwana belongs to this industrial memory, but its practical meaning is found in machine bases, water fittings, and later castings for machine tools, electrical machines, construction machines, automobiles, bridge handrails, and lighting fixtures. The forms coming out of Kuwana molds moved from hearthside goods into equipment, roads, bridges, and factory use.
Until around 1940, Kuwana castings developed on a base of everyday goods, but wartime restrictions pushed production away from those items and toward machine castings. Air raids during the Second World War caused severe damage, and after the war pig iron was difficult to obtain. Local makers collected aircraft duralumin and scattered scrap metal, cast them again, and turned them into pots and kettles for daily life.
Kuwana can also be read through objects that remain in public view. Kasuga Shrine has a bronze torii, Butsugan-in has a bell, and the city landscape includes fences, streetlights, motif-based manhole covers, bridge handrails, and clam-shaped cast wind chimes. These objects bring foundry work out of the plant and into shrine approaches, temple grounds, roads, bridges, and the small sound of metal moved by wind.
Since 1956, Kuwana has continued a casting technology competition that makes molding skill, speed, and finish visible outside ordinary production. Recent product development has also returned attention to daily-use castings, including an IH-compatible two-cup rice pot and mosquito-coil holders with summer-patterned lids. The Mie Prefecture traditional-craft designation attached to this field points to kettlebells and iron pots; the wider Kuwana range also appears in exhibitions, casting-product contests, quiz rallies, and hands-on casting experiences.
Kuwana castings are easiest to understand through named materials and objects: Komukai sand, pig-iron pots, noodle-making machines, waterworks equipment, postwar duralumin and scrap, the bronze torii at Kasuga Shrine, city manhole covers, and cast wind chimes. From an Edo-period origin told through gun production to the 1903 turn toward machinery and today’s daily-use development, Kuwana keeps pouring local manufacturing knowledge into forms people can cook with, walk across, listen to, or build into machines.
Compiled from public records and official sources; see the recognition links below. Details may change over time.
Where this selection is officially registered, designated, or recognized in Japan.
Regional collective trademark
Registered as a Regional Collective Trademark with the Japan Patent Office.
Sources1
It is written くわな鋳物 in Japanese. Search Rakuten and other Japanese sites with that spelling — the English name will not return the listings.
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