Lisn

LISN Kyoto sells incense sticks one at a time. For anyone who likes burning incense at home, the round counter is a particular pleasure. There are roughly 150 scents to choose from, and a passing curiosity need only cost you one stick. Ask for something that smells like the air after rain and see where the conversation takes you.

The shop sits on the ground floor of a former kimono merchant’s headquarters at Shijō–Karasuma. For the building’s renovation, Kengo Kuma’s team took a cloud pattern from a woodblock kept by Kyoto’s Karacho paper workshop and set it into the glass façade. Inside, Shigemasa Noi’s curved plaster and glass pick up the drift of smoke. There’s a small architectural joke underfoot. The floor is paved with roof tiles.

Incense had been burned as an offering in Japanese Buddhist temples for centuries before the technique for making it in sticks arrived from China during the Edo period. That was also the era in which Shoyeido, the Kyoto incense house behind LISN, began trading. The shop takes its name from the Japanese expression for ‘listening’ to incense, a lovely way of describing the attention a fragrance can ask of you.

Buying by the stick leaves room for a choice that would be reckless by the box. Take the one that feels familiar and the one that makes you wonder why you like it. Save the second for an ordinary evening at home, when you can strike a match and give it your full attention.