A Wall by George Nakashima

a timber and stucco modernist house with a single peaked roof and a white wall, inclined outward, with a black on white abstract mosaic by ben shahn, with a stone or sand zen garden in the foreground and winter trees behind, this is the arts building at george nakashima's woodworking compound in new hope pennsylvania
Please note the angle of the wall at the left, the one that seems covered with Brice Marden graffiti, but it is a Ben Shahn mosaic mural. George Nakashima, Arts Building/Minguren Museum, New Hope, PA, photo: World Monuments Fund

The Nakashima Compound in New Hope, Pennsylvania feels well-loved, impressive when visited, and very haphazardly documented. Probably because it is and has been in near constant use and change since George Nakashima built his first workshed in the 1940s. Maybe also because Nakashima did all the designs, and though he was trained as an architect, he was most known by the photographing and publishing classes, at least, as a woodwizarding furnituremaker.

a photo from the side or rear corner of george nakashima's arts building traces the tilted paraboloid roof, curved like a membrane on two axes, which is anchored at a corner on the left, but it all made of plywood. the white and black mosaic mural wall of ben shahn is on the right edge, grass or moss, perhaps, in the foreground amidst the trees whose leaves clog the drainage system of this experimental and rotting roof
Please not that angled wall again, or rather, please note the angle of that wall. photo: April Frantz for PA Historic Preservation

Whatever the situation, it has been difficult to find the photos I need to understand something that fascinates me in the Arts Building (1965 or 1967), first known as the Minguren Museum, the pointy, triangular-looking open structure with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof made of plywood. [There is also a poured concrete paraboloid roof structure, the Conoid Building, and the slatted, curved ceilings look similar inside, which is confusing. Also, did Nakashima really name buildings after his furniture lines as part of the marketing? I think a trip to the Compound/showroom/workshop was part of many large commissions, when clients came to select a tree or whatever. Maybe it all makes sense on the ground.]

In this Pennsylvania Historic Preservation blog post, it says this experimental roof was, in 2021, the subject of a Getty-funded conservation project undertaken by the University of Pennsylvania. After it had been flagged by the World Monuments Fund. So maybe there’s documentation after all. [Also, as someone from Raleigh, a town whose pioneering concrete hyperbolic paraboloid roof house masterpiece was neglected and destroyed by absolute idiots, I have to say the potential longer term viability of the Nakashima plywood roof gives me new hope.]

the pointed corner of the arts building with windows on both sides is softened by a gently arched ceiling of plywood. in the center of the light filled space stand some of george nakashima's most magnificent wood slabs, left here for contemplation in the natural ight. a dining table surrounded by nakashima chairs fills the foreground. in the center background of the photo, the loft of concrete and fieldstone that encloses the foyer below, is filled above with barely discernible furniture prototypes and folk art.
interior of Minguren Museum with some truly epic wood slabs, and the fieldstone and concrete coffered foyer and mezzanine in the corner, with a cast-in-place concrete parapet and railing at an angle via IG

But that’s not the point right now. Look inside the Arts Building or Minguren Museum, or the Nakashima Foundation for Peace. Entering at the building’s apex into a coffered concrete and fieldstone foyer, and discovering the space opening up, yes, and then the Loft definitely not floating above you.

a detail photo of a cantilevered open staircase going up a fieldstone wall in a light filled and arched space, with a three-tatami mat platform directly under it, with the gnarliest burl slab coffee table in the center of it. a single lounge chair in the lower right corner, and a photo of george nakashima and his daughter mira, in a wood slat frame, under the stairs, kind of explains where this is and who built this space.
the earliest online appearance on facebook in 2020 misattributed this to the Conoid House, where @denbeers correctly IDs it as the Arts Building (and cloister, which). But this is the photo with the wall with the angle

When I saw @denbeers’ tumblr of the cantilevered stairs, I wanted to lose twenty pounds, but first I wanted to know what in the world is going on with that concrete wall at the top. It is thin as can be, and angled. And the top looks just a little crumbly, or imperfect. But again, what is that wall? Why does it transfix me? I don’t care, I just want to know its story. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, I have found no one who visits the Nakashima Woodworkers Compound in the forest of New Hope who leaves writing about the concrete.

a blown out photo of the cantilevered staircase in george nakashima's arts building, which climbs a fieldstone wall, and has a tatami platform under it. in the foyer on the back side of the wall, it seems like chairs are arranged for storage or transport. some shoji screens cover some of the large window wall on the background. each floating stair tread has a little raised flange on the end, set at a slight angle, which mirrors the angle of the unusually thin concrete wall floating at the top, on the edge of the loft. a single slab of wood leans against the fieldstone wall.
wait is that foyer for entry or for storage? And what are those little wings on the stairs photo PA Hist by April Frantz

So I’m trying to intuit it. I think it’s the angle from the exterior wall behind it. I think it’s the angle of the edge of much thicker—but lower, and topped with a floating shelf—parapet. Is it the angle of recline of the Conoid chairs surrounding that table? Is it the angle of the keystone-shaped slabs under the Minguren dining tables?

a straight on photo of the cantilevered staircase to the loft in george nakashima's arts building illustrates how the tiny flanges on the end of each stair tread are angled the same as the thin concrete railing/wall at the top. at the base of the stairs, a large flat stone is set into the concrete floor. the windows behind are unusually all blue. not sure what that's about
Oh it is the angle of the wings on the stairs. and does the concrete floor slab taper like the stair treads too? photo: World Monuments Fund

It’s not just he angle, but the thinness, and the imperfection, that all belie the purported nature of concrete. Maybe I’d just come from seeing Isa Genzken’s show at Buchholz and had a refreshed, visceral appreciation for concrete in space?

George Nakashima’s Arts Building and Cloister: A Conservation and Management Plan, C. Bargues-Ballester, W. Whitaker, F. G. Matero [PDF, conlab]