Two identical pieces of wood, interlocking, with a thick, formed plate glass top. This is the coffee table designed by Isamu Noguchi. Although the Noguchi coffee table is more than 70 years old, it looks modern and striking even today. It’s something easily recognizable. Noguchi coffee tables are classics, with many early versions highly sought after.
But you can have a Noguchi coffee table in your home, floating, as it seems, in your living room. They are still being made.
Some pieces of furniture are just meant to be classic because they make you stop and think about function and form. Charles Darwin, for instance, invented what we would call an office chair today by putting wheels on the bottom of the chair in his office so he could roll back and forth. The Eames lounge chair was was among a wave of designer chairs that surfaced in the 1950s. It was the first chair the Eamses designed for more upscale clients, and was introduced to all of us on the Arlene Francis “Home” TV show in 1956.
The Noguchi coffee table is easily recognized as an original and iconic. Philippe Stark took an original idea, the Louis XVI armchair, and made the shape newly classic using stainless steel and clear acrylics where there once was wood and fabric. These Ghost Chairs are even stackable. Bent steel Tolix stools were designed in 1934, yet are widely used today in much the same form.
Replica furniture and pieces that are true to their original design, like a Noguchi coffee table, bring a special light into any home. They’re not only conversation pieces, they’re functional, and they last.
