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.

Isamu Noguchi was a pre-med student at Columbia University before he left to pursue his art full time. Noguchi supported himself early on by sculpting portrait busts, leading him to meet famed dance choreographer Martha Graham. The fortuitous meeting led to a 30-year collaboration, with Noguchi designing and transposing mythological elements into abstract form for his visionary sets and costumes for The Martha Graham Dance Company.

In the 1940s, Noguchi began to experiment in furniture design. One of his designs, a rocking stool with a unique wire base, caught the eye of Hans Knoll who introduced the design, with a matching table, in 1955. Using Noguchi’s original drawings, and in collaboration with the Noguchi Foundation, Knoll reintroduced the tables in 2003.

Although he developed products for Zenith, Steuben Glassworks, Herman Miller, and Knoll, Isamu Noguchi is not defined by his industrial design. He is most remembered as a sculptor, landscape artist, and set designer. His work, including his famous stone sculptures, can be seen at the Isamu Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York.