Of Japanese descent, George Nakashima was born in Spokane, Washington in 1905. He studied Forestry and Architecture at the University of Washington, attended the Ecole Americaine des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau, and earned his Master’s in Architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1929. His love of wood and his instinctive feeling about the right way to handle materials led him to seek beyond his training as an architect. After graduating he began a journey around the world, spending time in Japan, where he deepened his connection with his cultural roots and worked with architects, woodworkers, and carpenters to learn their methods. In Tokyo, he worked under architect Antonín Raymond, who later sent him to India to oversee the construction of Sri Aurobindo’s ashram and create its furniture. After returning to the U.S. in the early 1940s, Nakashima and his family were interned in a World War II relocation center. It was during this time that he met woodworker Gentaro Hikogawa, whose teachings reshaped his craft and led him to focus on furniture-making.