Under The Influence: Modern Design’s Debt To Asian Craft

By BETSY NATHAN

From German Bauhaus designers to Scandinavian and American mid-century makers, modernists have always been inspired by Asia. George Nakashima apprenticed in his ancestral Japan to learn “the finest traditions” of woodworking. Hans Wegner paradoxically helped to define Danish design with his Ming-inspired China Chairs for Fritz Hansen. And art historian Sarah Handler has drawn clear connections between Marcel Brauer’s Wassily Chair—an icon of industrial modernism—and 17th century Qing and Ming Meditation Chairs.

Although Japanese and Chinese designers were minimalists centuries before the mid-century modernists, unearthing the Eastern roots of Western modernism isn’t just an exercise in accreditation. It’s a way to bring craft and modernism back together again, breathing new life into old objects. Asian craft offers an alternative to the steel-and-glass rigidity of Western minimalism. Before Sam Maloof, Ming makers had perfected the art of mortise-and-tenon joinery. Strong joints were designed to hold chairs together without adhesives, so that they could be disassembled, packed and re-assembled at will—outlasting anything built with nails that would rust or glue that would crumble.

Chinese and Japanese craftsmen also saw their trade as a kind of humble, hard-won religion. George Nakashima knew this, believing—as the Shinto tradition does—that “there is a spirit…in the grain of a tree.” Despite the pressures of the prevailing industrialism that defined American postwar design, he maintained a handcrafted element and an appreciation for joinery in everything he did. In keeping his business purposefully small and simple, he was a modern echo of the Japanese toryo, or master temple carpenter.

Stories like these aren’t just entertaining historic anecdotes. They can, and should be, carried into today’s maker movement. Design houses like Knoll and Herman Miller are recognizing this. Knoll Textiles works with small fashion studios like Rodarte to adapt their hand-dyed ombrés into upholstery fabrics, while Herman Miller handcrafts Eames Chairs in its Zeeland, Michigan factory. Craft is a way to reconnect modernism to its roots, and the further back we go, the more we have to learn.

There’s a conversation to be had between ancient and modern objects. It’s a dialogue made richer and more human when east and west talk with one another. Chinese and Japanese craft are cornerstones of modern and contemporary design, just as the Western world exports its cultural influence. In the words of George Nakashima, “One borrows from another, which is the way I think a culture should be.”

Betsy Nathan is the owner of Pagoda Red, which has two locations: 400 N Morgan in Chicago's West Loop, and 911 Green Bay Rd. in Winnetka