In 1942, when returning to America (from Japan via India), Nakashima - along with 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage - was forced into an internment camp in an attempt to control the Japanese-American community after the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. “A stupid, insensitive act [...] It was a policy of unthinking racism” * At the persistent request of architects Antonin and Noémi Raymond (his former employers in Japan), Nakashima and his immediate family were released under the government’s conditions that lived in the vicinity of the Raymonds in New Hope, Pennsylvania and that he was not to practice architecture. From there on he committed his time to designing and making furniture. Through decades of changing trends, Nakashima stayed true to his vision. His dedication to the natural beauty in wood is wonderfully exemplified in his earliest forays into architecture and furniture design whilst working for the Raymonds in Karuizawa, Japan. St Paul’s Catholic Church in Karuizawa (1935) was the first instance that Nakashima was given the responsibilities of supervising building construction and the design of the furniture. And The Summer House (pictured above), also designed by The Raymond Studio, was completed in the same year as the church on a nearby site. It shows the same chairs constructed of peeled-poles of Cryptomeria (Sugi, in Japanese / Japanese Cedar in English) used at the church for which Nakashima was responsible. *Nakashima in The Soul of a Tree. #georgenakashima #antoninraymond #noemiraymond #karuizawa