Japanese Building Blocks

Building blocks are certainly among the first children’s toys. Since they have been around, they have changed very little – until Tsumiki (Japanese for building blocks) reached Japan, where the designer Toshiaki Yamada fashioned them with discrete but effective notches to couple the blocks to each other. With this small modification, together with unusual shapes like angles or arches, they go beyond simple stacking, seeming to defy the law of gravity as they aspire to veritable sculptures, without any fasteners or connecting pieces. The blocks are made in the Erz Mountains in Saxony.

The blocks are not suitable for children under the age of 3 because of the danger of choking on the smaller blocks.