The Noguchi Table is Isamu Noguchi’s 1944 design: two interlocking curved wood legs under a heavy triangular glass top. Herman Miller (US) and Vitra (Europe) make it under license from the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, and lookalikes of it are sold everywhere. This guide covers what a licensed table has that a lookalike skips, what the law protects, and how to own the real one. We do not recommend or link lookalikes of this design.
What a licensed table has that a lookalike skips
Three details carry the design, and they are the same three that separate a licensed table from an imitation: the base, the glass and the angle where the two legs meet.
The base: solid wood
The licensed base is solid wood: walnut, white ash, ebonized walnut or cherry in current production. The curves are not veneered or painted MDF. Lookalikes commonly use MDF, which chips at the edges, swells with moisture and peels at stress points within a few years.
The glass: three-quarters of an inch
The original table used 7/8-inch (22mm) glass until 1965, when Herman Miller moved to 3/4 inch (19mm) and raised the base slightly to compensate. That specification has held for sixty years. Lookalikes usually use glass around 12mm thick, which is cheaper and easier to ship, and which looks thin: the top loses the visual weight the geometry depends on.
The glass holds itself in place by gravity and the geometry of the base. The design uses almost nothing to do what it needs to do.
The 52-degree angle
The two base elements interlock at 52 degrees. Herman Miller added indexing pins to its production in the late 1980s to hold that angle precisely. Without equivalent engineering the legs drift, the table rocks, and the geometry that makes the design work starts to read as approximate. On a licensed table you will also find Noguchi’s signature on the base.
What Noguchi actually built
Noguchi designed the table in 1944, and Herman Miller put it into production in 1947. The table’s design economy is unusual. Three components: two curved wood legs that interlock at a specific angle, and a glass top that rests on them. No fasteners in the base join. The glass holds itself in place by gravity and the geometry of the base, which is why the shape hasn’t needed revision in eighty years.
That economy is also why lookalikes are everywhere: the shape looks simple to make. What a lookalike cannot carry is the Isamu Noguchi Foundation’s license, the manufacturing specification held since 1947, or the name. MoMA holds model IN-50, Noguchi’s 1944 original, in its permanent collection.
What the law actually protects
The shorthand, that the patents expired and so copies are legal, is half the story. Design patents in the United States run fifteen years from grant (35 U.S.C. §173), so every patent on a 1947 design lapsed generations ago. That is why a factory can lawfully produce the form.
What does not lapse is trademark and trade dress, which can run indefinitely so long as they are used and defended. The Noguchi Table is produced under licence from the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, which controls the use of Noguchi’s name and holds rights in the design; Herman Miller’s version carries the Noguchi signature on the base. The shape can be made; the name and the maker’s marks cannot, and a seller who reaches for either is telling you something about the rest of the object.
Outside the United States the ground shifts again: in the EU and the UK, furniture is protected as applied art for the designer’s life plus seventy years, and the UK repealed its twenty-five-year carve-out in 2016. The fuller version of this argument, with the case law, is in our piece on identifying an authentic Barcelona Chair.
If you want this table
New, from the licence holder. Herman Miller lists the Noguchi Table from $2,500 and up to $3,495, and it is sold in the United States through Design Within Reach, which is the same company. That price buys the specification described above and a piece that holds its value.
Secondhand, which is where the actual bargain is. A licensed example from the 1970s or 1980s is a better object than anything at the lookalike price and frequently costs less than half of new. Look at 1stDibs, Chairish, regional auction houses and estate sales. Check the glass thickness, whether the base is solid wood, the signature, and the angle where the two base pieces meet.
If the budget is a few hundred dollars. It does not buy this design in any version, and the honest alternative is a well-made table that is not imitating one. Something with its own logic will age better in a room than an approximation whose whole argument is that it resembles something famous.
Further Reading
Hayden Herrera’s Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015) is the biography that covers the furniture design period in full context, including the T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings dispute over the table’s design and the Herman Miller relationship. It’s the most complete account of how the table went from a small model Noguchi made around 1939–40 to a production object that’s been in continuous manufacture since 1947.
- Hayden Herrera, Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015): covers the furniture design period, the Herman Miller relationship, and the design authorship dispute in full
- Isamu Noguchi, A Sculptor’s World (first published 1968; Steidl edition): Noguchi’s own account of his practice, written at the height of his furniture and landscape work
For the broader survey of postwar design objects, see the iconic furniture design hub. For related companion pieces, see guides to the Saarinen Tulip Chair and best modern dining chairs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I tell if a Noguchi Table is authentic?
Check four things: a solid wood base (not MDF), 3/4-inch (19mm) glass on tables made since 1965, Noguchi’s signature on the base, and a Herman Miller or Vitra label. Tables made since the late 1980s also have indexing pins holding the two base pieces at 52 degrees. New licensed tables are sold only by Herman Miller, Vitra and their authorized dealers.
Is it legal to sell a copy of the Noguchi Table?
Only partly. The design patents lapsed long ago, so the form can be manufactured in the United States, but the Isamu Noguchi Foundation controls Noguchi’s name and the licensed makers’ marks, and none of them may be used on another maker’s table. In the EU and UK, furniture is protected as applied art for the designer’s life plus seventy years; Noguchi died in 1988.
How much does the Noguchi Table cost?
Herman Miller lists it from $2,500 to $3,495 depending on the base wood. Licensed secondhand examples often sell for less than half of new.
How thick is the glass on the Noguchi Table?
Herman Miller’s specification since 1965 is 3/4 inch (19mm). Tables made before 1965 used 7/8-inch (22mm) glass on a slightly lower base.
What wood is the Noguchi coffee table base made of?
The Herman Miller table has been produced in walnut, birch (discontinued 1954), cherry (first year, 1947 only), ebonized walnut, and white ash. Current production offers walnut, white ash, ebonized walnut, and natural cherry, all in solid wood.
Is the Vitra Noguchi table the same as Herman Miller’s?
Yes. Vitra is the licensed manufacturer for Europe, operating under the same Foundation relationship as Herman Miller, and produces the table to the original specification.
About Zoe Post
Zoe Post holds a BFA and a Master of Architecture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She now works as a product marketing leader at an architectural product design firm, bringing hands-on industry perspective to everything she writes. At ADI she covers contemporary artists, textile and pattern design, and the design objects that sit at the boundary of art and function.
