Mure, Takamatsu — one of a series of shore days Japan Royal Service builds for residents and guests of The World.
George Nakashima refused to hide the flaw in a piece of wood. Where a board had split, he set a butterfly joint across the crack in a contrasting timber and left it showing — a repair made into the most looked-at part of the table.
He is one of the founders of the American studio furniture movement, and a workshop fifteen minutes from the berth at Takamatsu has been making his designs under licence since the 1960s.
Why Takamatsu
Nakashima was born in Spokane in 1905, trained as an architect, worked in Japan and India, and was interned with his family in Idaho during the war — where a Japanese carpenter interned alongside him taught him traditional joinery. He built his practice afterwards in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
In the 1960s he found in Takamatsu a workshop whose standard of joinery satisfied him, and licensed it to make his furniture in Japan. That relationship has run for sixty years.
It is not a satellite of an American operation. It is a Japanese workshop that has spent two generations making one man's designs to his standard, in a city that has spent four hundred years being serious about how things are made.
The gallery
The memorial gallery here holds around sixty pieces. The main exhibits are on the first floor, up a staircase, in rooms lit for furniture rather than for a museum audience — which is the correct way to look at a table.
What you notice, seeing a room of it at once, is how little of it is decoration. The free edge of the board is kept because that is the shape the tree was. The butterfly is visible because a hidden repair would be a lie about the wood. Nakashima called the maker's job finding the one right use for a particular board, and a room of sixty pieces is sixty arguments about what that meant.
How a visit works, and why it needs arranging
This is a small institution and it runs on its own terms.
It opens two days a week. Visits happen as part of the scheduled public tour — the gallery has told us plainly that it does not do private visits, and does not take paid exclusive bookings either. There is no version of this where you have the rooms to yourself.
None of that is difficult once you know it. It is difficult if you arrive on the wrong day, which is what happens to almost everyone who tries this without asking first.
The deeper version
The workshop still makes, and still takes commissions.
An appointment with the person who inherited that responsibility is a different proposition from a gallery visit. It is a conversation about a specific piece: which board, which way the grain runs, where the butterfly goes, how long it will take, and whether the thing you have in mind is the right thing to make from the timber that exists.
Very few people outside Japan have that conversation. If a Nakashima piece for a residence is of any interest at all, this is the version of the visit worth your time — and it needs arranging well ahead.
What else is on this stretch of coast
Mure is fifteen minutes east of Takamatsu and holds an unusual concentration of makers: the granite quarries that have been worked by hand for eight hundred years, the specialist stone workshops, and Isamu Noguchi's studio, left as he stopped work in 1988. Wood in the morning and stone in the afternoon is one argument rather than two stops.
What we arrange
The tour on one of the two days it runs, or the commission appointment, or both. An interpreter, because the workshop's knowledge is not held in English and the interesting part is what a maker says about a board. And an honest brief beforehand about what the workshop can and cannot take on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which days does the gallery open?
Two days a week, and visits run as part of the scheduled public tour. Arriving on the wrong day is what happens to almost everyone who tries this without asking first.
Can the gallery be booked privately?
No. The gallery has told us plainly that it does not do private visits and does not take paid exclusive bookings. There is no version where you have the rooms to yourself.
Why is Nakashima connected to Takamatsu at all?
In the 1960s he found a workshop here whose joinery met his standard and licensed it to make his furniture in Japan. That relationship has run for sixty years.
Can a piece be commissioned?
Yes. The workshop still makes and still takes commissions, and an appointment with the person who inherited that responsibility is a conversation about a specific board rather than a tour. It needs arranging well ahead.
More on this rotation
- Where Japan's pine bonsai are grown — Takamatsu
- Sanuki temari — Takamatsu
- A private evening on Yashima — Takamatsu
For residents and guests of The World
The ship lies at Takamatsu for days, not hours. That is what makes a place that opens two days a week a matter of choosing the right morning rather than a gamble.
We are a Japanese company, working in Japanese, with the people who run these places. The arrangements are made by someone the other side already knows.
Enquiries are handled privately and directly, at japanroyalservice.com/contact. We do not publish our clients, our itineraries, or our rates.
Access notes
We asked these questions of each place directly, and the answers are specific to it. Most guests will have no use for them; they are here because somebody will.
The main exhibits are on the first floor, reached only by stairs, and there is no lift. The commission appointment is a different matter: it happens seated, at a table, so the staircase does not come into it.
