There is a workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where the trees have grown so tall that you can no longer see the mountains. They were planted by a man who believed that a tree, even after it falls, retains something of its life, that if you know how to listen, the wood speaks to you.
George Nakashima trained as an architect. He had worked in Japan, where he came to appreciate the care and deep respect traditional woodworkers brought to selecting timber, at times spending years finding the right piece to work with. Returning to America, he found himself unable to accept the shoddy construction hidden behind polished exteriors.
He turned to furniture, a practice he could oversee from tree to the finished piece. He worked with timber that others discarded. In its knots and imperfections he found evidence that it had once lived, something smooth, uniform timber could never offer.
In Japan, he had learned that joinery was the architecture. A joint was not a problem to be hidden but a statement of care, made visible because it deserved to be seen. That idea never left him. When you can see how a piece is held together, you understand it is held together well. The joint becomes an invitation rather than a warning: use this, trust this, live with this. Legible construction is an act of honesty and honesty, in furniture, is what makes something last.
Nakashima believed that if we lost our manual skills and our connection to natural materials, we would lose something essential about being human. He said it in the 1940s. It is worth saying again now.
A thinker as much as a maker.
George Nakashima's workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Photography by Monika Mróz ©