What is Wadokei ?

Until the end of the Edo period, Japanese people lived in harmony with the sun. At dawn, hearing the bell of the nearest temple, people set off for work. At sunset, they returned home to eat supper, enjoy a chat, read a book, take a bath, and finally slip into their futon (traditional Japanese bedding).

For a lifestyle like this, dividing the day simply into daytime and nighttime made the most practical sense.

Thus, a uniquely Japanese temporal system was born: the seasonal time system. Both daytime and nighttime were each divided into six toki. While a single toki roughly corresponded to two Western hours, it was never a fixed two hours; instead, its length varied continuously with the changing seasons.

Japanese clockmakers had to find a way to adapt mechanical horology to this fluid, uneven time system. Taking inspiration from Western mechanical clocks, they brilliantly engineered mechanisms tailored specifically to the Japanese seasonal hours.

Astonishingly, Edo-period artisans succeeded in creating clocks that automatically adjusted the duration of each toki to match the changing seasons. Think about that—with every shift in dawn and sunset, the length of a toki changed just a little bit every single day!

Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the new government sought to modernise society and everyday life, officially abolishing the traditional time system and adopting the Western clock system in 1872.

Overnight, wadokei artisans lost their livelihoods, and these mechanical masterpieces were rendered obsolete.

Now, we have decided to resurrect the wadokei for the 21st century.