George Nakashima: from a concentration camp to becoming a revolutionary wood designer

The Indian philosopher

said about the soul of a tree that, “the created object can live forever, but that the tree must live in a new form.

The object cannot follow a transitory style, but its appeal must be universal ”.

traveled the world in search of meaning, finding it only inspired by Japanese and Hindu philosophy.

A journey of personal and artistic discovery now revealed in a new documentary called

and that can already be seen online, and that was also broadcast at the beginning of the month through the official website of Design Miami.

The film, directed by the designer's nephew, John Nakashima, aims to continue the intellectual adventure started by the artist who revolutionized woodworking.

Nakashima's belief was that when a piece of furniture is made, a new life is created for the trees.

For him, the tree is our most intimate contact with nature, and he believed that each of them has its own particular destiny to fulfill, through his work as a craftsman, in which he shows the natural beauty of wood without producing it. mass.

The soul of the tree as the main teaching of a master carpenter

Between 1847 and 1858, Nakashima built a complex of 18 concrete, cement and glass buildings, which he designed for himself and his family in New Hope, Pennsylvania (USA).

A huge construction that became a National Historic Landmark in 2014, and can now be visited as an open-air museum at the Nakashima Gallery in Takamatsu, Japan.

As the founder and co-director of the Moderne Gallery in Philadelphia,

: "It is difficult to overstate his importance as a designer, his influence is worldwide, as he is one of the few American designers acclaimed as a 20th century master carpenter."

This new documentary is as personal a journey as any of Nakashima's creations.

Mira Nakashima-Yarnall, the designer's daughter, also a carpenter, and her nephew, television producer John Terry Nakashima, have worked on it for no less than 30 years, since the designer's death in 1990. “We discovered some letters and photographs from my father hiding at home that aroused our curiosity, "says Mira Nakashima." This discovery made us explore the story of our common ancestor to the end.

For me, it was a way of understanding what motivated him, a beautiful exploration of the Japanese side of our family ”, he continues in the documentary.

Designer George Nakashima liked to say that he kept some pieces of wood in his study for long periods of time, and that "it would only be after 10 years that he would figure out what to do with them," recalls his nephew, John Nakashima, in the documentary film.

The elegant wooden furniture of this iconic designer is thus an extension to the interior of the spirit and the peculiarities of its material, in no case conceived as such, but as another way of life that, with a hand-rubbed oil finish, “lives and breathe ”.

Now these pieces are now a cornerstone of 20th century design.

But as his nephew details, his uncle came to his profession and his artistic sensibility, only after his travels, both physical and personal self-discovery that he carried out for 30 years.

“He just decided that he had to find a reason to create.

My Uncle George was a mystery to me, he was not your typical American man.

We knew that he had been all over the world, that he was smart and sophisticated.

But, during a visit to the Nakashima complex, I began to be aware that those buildings, that place, would never have existed without their intervention ”, he declares in the film.

The documentary reviews the life of the designer, from his birth, through his studies in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to his voyage of discovery around the world, which began in 1931 aboard a ship. steam.

Tables and chairs 'Nakashima'

In Japan, Nakashima immersed himself in Shinto beliefs, met his future wife, Marion Okajima, and worked with

, a former Frank Lloyd Wright employee.

Together with him he built the Golconde residential residence for the spiritual community led by the Sri Aurobindo ashram in the 1930s, to which he belonged under the name of Sundarananda, “the one who takes pleasure in beauty”.

While there, he began building furniture and became a disciple of the guru from whom he learned that “in life, the act of creating and spirituality can be one,” John says in the film.

In 1942, during World War II, George Nakashima was taken to the Minidoka concentration camp (Idaho, USA) with his wife and young daughter, Mira.

There he learned some techniques of the trade with an expert carpenter named

, a meeting that decisively influenced his later work.

As early as 1943, the designer Antonin Raymond, obtained the release of George, Marion and Mira, although many of their closest relatives remained in detention.

Upon leaving, Nakashima bought a piece of land an hour from Philadelphia, where he began to build his home-studio.

Today, that farm is home to Nakashima Wood workers, led by Mira Nakashima, who worked closely with her father and is the one who oversees the production of their designs.

The workshop opened its doors for the documentary, which was, in Mira's words, “a discovery process for both of us, my cousin and me,” says Mira.

A documentary, in short, that presents a good opportunity to experience the designer's life journey and understand his approach, an art that was also detailed in the book that Nakashima himself published in 1981 called

("The soul of a tree")