Photography by Meredith Swinehart.
Everything was bursting into bloom on the spring day when I had the opportunity to visit the New Hope, Pennsylvania home and studio of legendary American woodworker George Nakashima, a leader in the Arts and Crafts movement.
There are 14 buildings on the grounds, each designed and built by George Nakashima between 1946 and 1975.
The front arc of the Conoid Studio, set among cherry trees.
Between the Conoid Studio and the Chair Shop is a wrought iron sculpture by artist and designer Harry Bertoia, a close friend of Nakashima.
The Chair Shop was built in 1957 as a lunch room for employees but soon became the headquarters of chair assembly.
The Chair Shop overlooks a verdant landscape–a clear connection between living trees and finished furniture.
The Arts Building, completed in 1967, is now the headquarters of the Nakashima Foundation for Peace, whose goal is to install large wooden “Altars of Peace” on every continent.
In the first floor of the Arts Building sits an enlarged ink drawing by social realist painter Ben Shahn, another close friend of Nakashima.
A store of three-legged stools on the upper floor of the Arts Building.
An Arts Building pond resident gets some sun.
The Reception House, Nakashima’s last building (finished in 1975), was built to entertain special visitors. Four Greenrock Ottomans, designed for Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s Catskills home, sit in the main room.
This traditional Japanese tea room in the Reception House was used for a tea ceremony only once during Nakashima’s lifetime, and later for a memorial ceremony; the room most commonly serves as a guest bedroom.
For more on George Nakashima’s designs and current collections, visit George Nakashima Woodworker and the Nakashima Foundation for Peace.