Most of us set upon studying a subject because they feel they have a passion for that specific field and eventually build their career around it, but there are very few people among us who truly question the reasons behind their choices as George Nakashima did. The designer is currently being celebrated with the documentary "George Nakashima, Woodworker" (2020) at the Architecture & Design Film Festival. Due to Coronavirus the festival was rescheduled online and it is now possible for architecture and design fans based in the U.S. and Canada to watch the 17 films part of the virtual programme until December 3 (tickets for individual films and all-access passes are on sale at this link; but you can also watch the DVD or watch it online here).
The documentary, directed by John Terry Nakashima, George's nephew, is almost two hours long and the actual title refers to how Nakashima used to describe himself - not a designer or an architect, ego-based labels according to him - but woodworker, a definition that emphasised the craftsmanship aspect in his work. This description in a way fits only the second part of the documentary as the first part takes us on an intense journey through Nakashima's studies and experiences in different countries that helped him finding his path in life.
George Katsutoshi Nakashima was born in 1905 in Spokane, Washington, from parents who came from samurai families. He studied architecture, earning a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1931. In the midst of the Great Depression, he decided to follow his instincts and travelled to Europe, Japan and India feeling he couldn't create until he found a reason why he should do so. In Japan he worked on Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo under Czech-American architect Antonin Raymond, but, little by little, he was fascinated by the local architecture such as the Katsura Imperial Villa, a finest example of Japanese architecture and garden design from the early-mid 17th century in Kyoto, and by the Japanese philosophy.
He absorbed indeed from Zen scholars a passion for irregularities and asymmetries found in nature, for simplicity, subtle beauty, unconventional creativity and silent tranquillity. After Japan, Nakashima continued his journey to India where he became a follower of guru Sri Aurobindo. In India he followed the construction of a reinforced concrete building, the first of its kind, the Golconde Dormitory in Pondicherry, in the south of the country. While working on this project he started understanding why he wanted to create and realised that designing for him was a spiritual act rather than something that merely satisfied his ego.
He returned to America in 1940 but, when in February 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066, a directive that authorized the internment of Japanese citizens and American citizens of Japanese heritage, he was interned with his wife Marion and young daughter Mira in Camp Minidoka in Hunt, Idaho. He went through difficult experiences and hardships, but he managed to find new inspirations when he met at the camp Gentaro Hikogawa, who taught him traditional Japanese carpentry.
Released from the camp in 1943, he was invited by Antonin and Noémi Raymond to live on their farm in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Nakashima remembered how at the camp he had learnt to improvise with the wood he could find and started experimenting with wood. At the end of the war, he was finally free to explore new possibilities.
He bought three acres of land in New Hope and built a workshop and a house, living simply and close to nature he started creating things of beauty: inspired by early American houses and furniture he produced his first pieces of furniture and soon created lines for companies such as Knoll and Widdicomb, also accepting private commissions. His sculptural yet functional chairs, desks and chaise lounges were a combination of architecture and of his beliefs in nature.
Nakashima kept on experimenting, reaching new levels when he realised that the imperfections of wood were the distinctive parts of the tree, the most beautiful features of his material of choice.
He therefore set out to design around these imperfections to bring out of the wood the grain imprisoned in the tree, conceiving this process as an act of creation that allowed him to free these dynamic tensions and movements trapped in the wood. A strong, creative force allowed him to bring out of the tree its beauty and its spirit in this way, that's why he usually chose boards with knots, cracks, burls and wormholes. He embraced the flaws and highlighted them at times with his signature elements like his butterfly joints.
In the '70s Nakashima also created magnificent tables like his massive altar for peace; he died in 1990, but his legacy continues through his company and through the George Nakashima Woodworker Complex, the 12 acre complex (a National Historic Landmark) located in New Hope, Pennsylvania, that features 21 buildings, all designed by Nakashima.
There have been other documentaries mentioning Nakashima and looking at his unique legacy of craftsmanship and design, but "George Nakashima, Woodworker" is the most complete not just because it was researched since 1990 by his own nephew who worked on it with his cousin, Mira Nakashima-Yarnall, the designer's daughter (who is also a woodworker), but because it is the most complete one about him since it also looks at the architectures George Nakashima designed.
Last but not least, while the documentary is a way for his nephew to rediscover his uncle George's history, it is also a way to question the audience about the reasons why we create, inviting those designers among us to consider how they should first and foremost find the reasons behind their choices and then share their visions with other people, like Nakashima did.
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