Virtual Tours
These virtual tours are available free of charge. Please consider a donation to support our ongoing work.
A History of George Nakashima
Join Mira Nakashima as she provides an overview of the life and career of her father George Nakashima, internationally renowned woodworker and a leader in 20th century American design and the American studio craft movement.
Mira highlights the career of George Nakashima, his work in Europe and Asia, the Nakashima family life, the lifelong spiritual influences that came about during his architectural work on the Sri Aurobindo Ashram dormitory in Pondicherry, India, the Nakashima experience during the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the eventual move to Bucks County, Pennsylvania where he set up a woodworking shop in 1945 that remains the site of an active business.
The Nakashima Family House
The Nakashima Family House was the second building that George Nakashima built on the property in 1946-1947. The House was continuously occupied until the 2020 passing of George’s son, Kevin, the last Family House resident and “curator” of family history and lore. Not only is the House an enduring testament to Nakashima’s mid century Japanese folk craft, it is filled with handcrafted furniture and built-in cabinetry, books, art work, letters and memoirs, and artifacts and archives related to the family’s life and travel, as well as their incarceration at Camp Minidoka during World War II.
The Woodworkers
These interviews of the staff are the first step into the future of Nakashima’s, recognizing that it is the spirit and hands of the woodworkers who have made things happen from the very beginning. Their dedication to the creation of beauty, their deepening understanding of the wood itself, their ever increasing woodworking skills, the refinement of design on the workbench with its unending surprises set the work apart from the rest of the world.
Each team member brings a different gift to work. Some have worked in construction, others have studied art, and some have crafted furniture in other places, but all are unified by a shared love and respect for George Nakashima’s work, design approach, and way of life.