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The Noguchi Foundation is reviving original designs--and an original
tenet of Modernism.
By Michele Herman
The Metropolis Observed
October 2002
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Long unavailable, Isamu Noguchi's Rocking Stool (below) and Biomorphic Sofa
and Ottoman (above) are being put back into production by the Vitra Design
Museum.
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Bottom, Thomas Dix; top, courtesy Vitra Design Museum
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Offsite:
Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Store, www.noguchi.org/shop.html
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Remember the populist ideal behind Modernist furniture that said good design
should be within the reach of the masses? In 1998, when he became director
of merchandising at the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, in Long Island City, Queens,
Douglas De Nicola set out to revive this ideal, long lost in the midcentury
Modern feeding frenzy. He had a personal stake in wanting Noguchi pieces
to be affordable, as the designer had originally intended: like many, he
had fallen in love with Noguchi's Akari light sculptures--but had been burned
by the unexpectedly high prices.
De Nicola began his quiet revolution by lowering the prices of Akari lamps
as much as 20 percent. "I wanted them to be under $100, so different
sorts of people could buy them," he says. "We have made up in
volume what we might have lost in profit margin." Flush with this success,
De Nicola tried a similar strategy with Noguchi's furniture. Although the
sculptor designed the most recognizable coffee table in existence, many
of his other designs were out of production or had never been produced at
all. But De Nicola realized that because they are so clean and simple, they
could be manufactured according to Noguchi's specs at relatively reasonable
prices.
Two years ago De Nicola established a manufacturing partnership with the
Vitra Design Museum of Germany, which had curated a traveling Noguchi exhibit.
Last spring they revived Noguchi's long unavailable Rocking Stools ($450
and $500), originally marketed as companions to Harry Bertoia's Children's
Chair. Meanwhile, De Nicola convinced Knoll to put the Cyclone Table--a
larger flat-topped version of the stool--back into production in three sizes
(from $1,200 for a side table to $2,100 for a 42-inch dining table). Vitra
also began manufacturing a never produced piece that was Noguchi's last
furniture design: a small prismatic aluminum table ($230) he created in
1957 as a promotion for the Alcoa company. All of these pieces are available
through the Noguchi Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.
This fall the crusade to bring Noguchi back to the people unveils its most
dramatic effort: the Biomorphic Sofa. Noguchi's only sofa was designed in
1948 for Herman Miller, which manufactured just a handful of them. Nearly
ten feet long, it's a free-form wool-upholstered piece with a seat that
vaguely resembles an elongated eggplant. An original sold at auction this
past May for $250,000. The new version--being made in Italy very close to
the original specs--will sell for $5,500 ($1,500 for the huge matching ottoman).
"We're not sacrificing any quality," De Nicola says. "We
thought it would be ideally suited not only for residential use, but for
reception areas at hotels." The Rudder Table, a set of never produced
flatware, and two Akari lamps not previously sold in the United States will
round out the fall offerings.
Meanwhile, Herman Miller has held on to copyrights for the famous 1944 coffee
table. In 1984 it became available in the retail market for the first time.
Last year the company established a suggested retail price of $1,000, reining
it in from the $1,200 or more that dealers charged. Ray Kennedy, director
of Herman Miller for the Home, insists that most Modernist pieces are expensive
because they're expensive to make. But he admits that as a result of the
new strategy "there's been a dramatic increase in the number of [tables]
we've sold."
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