George Nakashima

George Nakashima (1905–1990) was an American woodworker and designer of Japanese descent, born in Spokane, Washington. An architect by training at MIT, he worked in Japan and in India before opening his workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania, in 1945, using the skills learned as an Eagle Scout in the Pacific Northwest, an architect in the Far East and a woodworker in the Idaho desert.

His furniture is built around the slab: he chose each plank for its grain and edges, letting the tree keep its shape in tables, benches and the Conoid chairs, and pursued antiques of the future made by designer and maker hand in hand. The studio still mills sustainably harvested hardwoods and builds to order under his daughter Mira Nakashima, while the Nakashima Foundation for Peace carries on his project of Altars for Peace for the seven continents.