FEATURES ARCHIVE

Nature, reborn.
Japanese-American woodworker George Nakashima designed and made furniture at his workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania from the 1940s until his death in 1990. His hand-crafted designs and underlying philosophies were closely tied to his Japanese heritage. Central to Nakashima’s mission was a reverence for nature and a desire to maintain the integrity and beauty of the tree with minimal manipulation to create his desired form. This walnut bench, created in 1964, displays a rich, beautiful figure, free of veneer, allowing the organic material to shine. The free edges of the bench remain true to the tree’s original form and succeed in giving it new life as an aesthetically pleasing and functional object.

Although Nakashima’s designs maintain a modern feel, his philosophy reflects some of the tenets from the Arts & Crafts movement at the turn of the century, which advocated the importance of the handmade object. Nakashima was adamantly opposed to the dehumanizing effects of industrialized mass-production that the majority of his contemporaries embraced. Rather, his creativity was deeply rooted in working his objects by hand and allowing the material to speak for itself.