Deconstructing Product Design

IN-50 Coffee Table

Isamu Noguchi, 1944

1. It is difficult to believe that a table as simple and elegant as the IN-50 could have in any way been inspired by drama or negativity, but history teaches that great design often finds inspiration from unlikely sources. Isamu Noguchi comments: “I went to Hawaii in 1939 to do an advertisement (with Georgia O’Keefe and Pierre Roy). As a result of this I had met Robsjohn Gibbings, the furniture designer, who had asked me to do a coffee table for him (I had already done a table for Conger Goodyear). I designed a small model in plastic and heard no further before I went west. While interned in Poston I was surprised to see a variation of this published as a Gibbings advertisement. When, on my return I remonstrated, ...