George Nakashima Studio

Several weeks ago, I took a drive to New Hope, Pennsylvania to visit the sprawling 9-acre workshop/home of George Nakashima. Nakashima, a Japanese-American architect and furniture designer, passed away in 1990. He is survived by his two children, who still work at the compound producing the hand-crafted fine wood furniture that their father made into an American classic.

Some photos from around the internet of Nakashima pieces, including a close-up of his signature butterfly joints.

When someone says a ‘Nakashima piece’ they are usually referring to the natural wood pieces he used, essentially leaving their original uncut shape intact. Heavy slabs cut at the mill often left the original turns and uneven form of the tree rather than cutting the shapes down to more traditional rectangles or squared edges. 60 years later, thanks to Nakashima himself, it seems normal to embrace the ‘nature’ of the wood slabs, but the designs were quite startling at the time. It’s simple to describe the Nakashima aesthetic as ‘natural wood shapes,’ but the legs and bases are the quiet engineering feats that complete the whole. The leg and support pieces use angles that show Nakashima knew a lot more about wood and its strengths than many ever will: many pieces just don’t look like they’d support weight or offer stability, yet they do.

Wood pieces marked for use are all over the place, these are in the entry of the Conoid Studio, one of the several buildings on the compound designed by Nakashima.

Butterfly pieces awaiting use in the workshop.

The warehouse stores hundreds of cuts of wood hand-picked by Nakashima before his death.

Nakashima lived a full life, described to us by his daughter Mira on the tour of the compound: his young adult years spent in 30’s Paris, studies in Tokyo, a short-lived furniture business in Seattle before he and his family were moved into one of the infamous “relocation” camps the US government put its own Japanese-descent citizens in during WWII. After WWII, Nakashima moved to Pennsylvania and started creating the designs that are his legacy, many which are still crafted by a handful of artisans in the buildings on the family compound.

Each Nakashima-designed building (he was also an innovative architect) is dedicated to a different aspect of the process, and the tour takes you through each one, culminating in the amazing art gallery building at the bottom of the low-slung south-facing hillside the entire compound is built into. The tour is a fantastic opportunity to see what goes into furniture of this kind, and it’s great to meet the people who worked with Nakashima and are still working there today. Often hosted by Nakashima’s daughter, the tour is informative and inspiring for anyone with any interest in furniture and American craft.

From NYC, the trip was a quick two-hour drive to New Hope, and on that drive, I was exposed to another classic institute of the Pennsylvania suburbs: Wawa food markets. Whoa. Awesome. Wawa carries the torch of the Automat into the 21st century. It’s like combining an 7/11, a Subway sandwiches, and a self check-in kiosk at the airport.

Wawa Markets: My New Favorite Spot™

You build your sandwich not by describing it to someone, but instead via a thorough set of touch-screen button presses, with buttons for which cold-cut meats you want, which bread, cheese, and condiments you prefer. My favorite was the “More mustard” and “Less mustard” options.

And believe it or not, it’s a good sandwich!