Nakashima Revealed: The Carnegie Mellon Collection

Curator: Rachel Delphia
Course Instructors: Laura Vinchesi, Rachel Delphia 
Student Designers:
    (Exhibition) Cameron Dubois, Henry Julier, Mary Katica,
    Sasha Prood, Melissa Tashiro, Winni Tse
    (Catalog) Hyun Jung Kim, Alicia Pompei, Rachel Stadelmeier 
    (Media) Natisha Kang, Yong Woo Rhee, Margaret Szeto
Photographer: Dylan Vitone 

Special thanks to:
    Regina Gouger Miller
    Carnegie Mellon University Advancement
    Carnegie Mellon School of Design

Nakashima Revealed began in February 2006 as a research project and an educational endeavor. The design of the exhibition, catalog, and website were the subject matter of an exhibition design course in the Carnegie Mellon School of Design during the spring of 2007.

Excerpt from Nakashima Revealed Book

"In a world where styles change frequently and the old is often cast aside for the new, furniture rarely remains in use in the same place for more than a generation. It is remarkable then that a collection of more than sixty pieces of furniture by George Nakashima has been continuously in use at Carnegie Mellon University since 1966. Today the furniture can be found in many of the original offices, almost as it was envisioned more than forty years ago. Its survival is a testament to the timeless nature of Nakashima’s designs as well as to the durability of his hardwood furniture. The history of the furniture’s arrival on the campus of what was then Carnegie Institute of Technology, or “Carnegie Tech,” unfolds in these pages and in the accompanying exhibition, which showcase the collection for the first time.

Much has been written on the life and work of George Nakashima. The retrospective exhibitions and catalogs for the American Craft Museum and the Mingei International Museum have placed his work within the art historical and cultural landscapes, and the exhibition at the James A. Michener Art Museum provided an exploration of Nakashima as a modernist.1 Few have focused, however, on the businesses, churches, and universities, many of them in Pennsylvania, that provided Nakashima with substantial commissions. The Carnegie Mellon collection of George Nakashima furniture is a little-known treasure that should be appreciated, enjoyed, and protected for years to come.

George Nakashima (1905-1990) was born in Spokane, Washington, to parents of Japanese Samurai ancestry. As a Boy Scout roaming the mountain forests of the Pacific Northwest, he developed an appreciation for nature that shaped his life and career. He later became an architect, designer, and, most famously, a woodworker. He studied at the University of Washington and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a bachelor’s and a master’s of architecture in 1929 and 1930. As an undergraduate, he also spent a year abroad on scholarship at the Ecole Americaine des Beaux Arts in Fontainebleau, France. [..]"