Knoll Isamu Noguchi - Cyclone™ Side Table

After returning from a trip Japan where he had seen polyurethane basins and other unique objects made from plastic, Noguchi had the idea to create a stool using the same materials. “In 1954 I happened to do a stool that Hans Knoll liked; it was a rocking stool. I had the idea of making it out of plastic…He wanted them in some sort of wire, à la Bertoia. They asked me to adapt the stool to a table.”

After making the switch from plastic to wire and scaling the design to table size, Knoll marketed the Cyclone alongside the Bertoia wire chair collection for several years. The table was taken out of production in 1974, but was reintroduced in 2003. In collaboration with the Noguchi Foundation, the design is meticulously reproduced using Noguchi’s original drawings.

Initially conceived as a rocking stool, Isamu Noguchi’s playful design caught the attention of Hans Knoll who thought it a perfect complement to the Bertoia wire collection. At the suggestion of Hans Knoll, Noguchi adapted the stool into a small table in 1954, and a full size dining table in 1957. The distinctive base features chrome-plated steel wires set into a cast-iron, black porcelain-finished foot.

MEASUREMENTS:

• Height: 50.8 cm / 20 inch


• Width: 60.9 cm / 24 inch

MATERIALS:

• Tabletop is Birch plywood with black or white laminate surface and a natural Birch edge


• Column is chrome-plated steel wire


• Base is case iron with black textured powder coat finish

HELPFUL NOTES:

• Available with black or white table top


• KnollStudio logo and Isamu Noguchi’s signature are stamped on the underside of the tabletop


• GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certified®

Isamu Noguchi

USA, 1904 – 1988

“The art of stone in a Japanese garden is that of placement. Its ideal does not deviate from that of nature…but I am also a sculptor of the West. I place my mark and do not hide.” – Isamu Noguchi

Isamu Noguchi was born in Los Angeles in 1904 to an Irish-American mother and Yone Noguchi, a Japanese poet. In 1906, Noguchi’s mother took him to Japan, where he attended school. While in Japan, Noguchi gained an appreciation for its landscape, architecture and craftsmanship. Noguchi returned to the US and enrolled in Columbia University to study medicine, while at the same time taking sculpture classes on the lower east side of New York City. It wasn’t long before he realized that art, not medicine, was his true calling. His interest in abstract art led him to Paris where he met and worked with the great modernist sculptor, Constantin Brancusi.

After World War II, Noguchi returned to Japan and found a community of young artists eager to take part in the optimism of his new ideas. He continued to make individual sculptures, but was also given the opportunity to work on larger site-specific pieces.

His classic designs — notably his Akari lamps and his free-form coffee table — have never been more popular. In New York, weary urbanites take tranquil refuge in the delicate light and shadow of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum. He has gardens in Paris, Jerusalem, and New York and outdoor sculptures and environments in seventeen American cities. In these beautiful, spiritual, and finely constructed works Isamu Noguchi has created a dynamic testament to the ties between East and West. Noguchi died in December of 1988 at the age of 84, but his influence continues to spread.

Shop all designs by Isamu Noguchi