With its plush, rounded form and giddily off-kilter stance, the Le Nopal armchair looks like it might have sprung from the anarchic mind of Tim Burton or Pee-wee Herman.
Buoyantly biomorphic and displaying not a trace of symmetry, the chair is supported by a trio of elliptical legs and crowned by a pair of protruding ears. An unmistakable homage to a cactus, it sports olive-colored velvet chenille upholstery and is even punctuated by lacquered-bronze blossoms, calling to mind the flowers on a prickly pear — commonly called a nopal in Spanish.
The seat was created by William T. Georgis and Ilya Mirgorodsky, whose eponymous firm, Georgis & Mirgorodsky, consistently appears on lists of the nation’s top architects and interior designers. The pair were designing the La Jolla, California, furniture and fashion boutique Tropical Punch a couple of years ago when its co-owner Zoe Kleinbub suggested they create a chair for clients to sit on. Le Nopal was the result.
“La Jolla is a border town, and I’m really interested in the Spanish diaspora and the vaquero culture, which was the prototype for American cowboys,” says Georgis, who trained as an art historian before earning an architecture degree. “I’m also really interested in Surrealism, particularly Salvador Dalí’s Mae West Lips sofa, which was designed in the 1930s.” Figuring that prickly pears were as iconic as a movie star’s mouth, he and Mirgorodsky created Le Nopal. Georgis attributes the mash-up of Spanish (nopal) and French (le) in its name to the American habit of using the latter to give anything instant glamour.
Benoist F. Drut, who is French and no stranger to glamour himself, is proprietor of the New York design gallery Maison Gerard and the exclusive dealer for Georgis & Mirgorodsky furniture. An unabashed and longtime fan of the team’s work (he began selling their Whalebone sofa back in 2017), Drut marvels at their wit and ability to blend aesthetics with superb comfort. “Great design is when something can be beautiful and functional,” he says. “Oftentimes, it’s one or the other but not both.”
Drut considers the design “functional sculpture” and likens it to couture fashion, since only a handful of the chairs exist and each is made to order. The piece had its East Coast debut in the Maison Gerard display at the 2022 Salon Art + Design Show at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory, and it appeared the following year at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, where Georgis & Mirgorodsky tucked it into an exotic dining room inspired by Turkish and Egyptian design. “It could be in a modern loftlike space. It could be mixed with 18th-century French furniture. It’s a statement piece — it’s versatile,” says Georgis, who is developing an outdoor version, as well as one in woven rush accented with turquoise.
Asked whether he thinks of the Nopal as furniture or art, Georgis demurs. “That whole conversation is too complex for my mind,” he says with a laugh. “You could call it ‘fine design.’ I think ‘art’ is pushing it.”
