A Legend Lives on

POOL connects with Mira Nakashima, who has nurtured her famous father’s legacy with love and dedication.

How does George Nakashima’s woodworker philosophy live on?

MN: We do our best to preserve the philosophy of Karma Yoga which my father learned while building the first reinforced concrete building in India in Pondicherry from 1936-39. Named Golconde, it was the basis of his work. My father often spoke of the theory ‘Small is Beautiful’ and greatly respected the name Sri Aurobindo gave him, ‘Sundarananda’.

We are still working through much of the wood my father purchased and milled himself, and two of our older employees actually worked with my father; so we are trying to teach our younger employees his philosophy through the work itself. Our work has become much more complicated than it used to be, and there are many things in addition to simply designing and woodworking, such as building preservation, which now keep us very busy. We try to maintain the same way of respecting the natural wood forms and combining them with architectonic elements that my father used in the beginning, although we have added some machinery such as a thickness sander to our collection of machines. We are basically limited to the same old machinery within the same old workshop which my father used, which limits the number of men we can employ, as well as the number of pieces made at any given time.