Coconut Chair by George Nelson for Vitra, 1950s

George Nelson (1908–86) attributed many of his design breakthroughs to creative “zaps.” He described such moments as “when the solitary individual finds he is connected with a reality he never dreamed of.” The Coconut lounge chair can certainly be traced back to one such “zap.”

The inspiration for the piece — which evolved from an idea presented by George Mulhauser, a designer who worked at Nelson’s Manhattan studio, George Nelson Associates, Inc., and is now credited with the concept — was as simple as the name suggests: a curved slice of coconut. In addition to the tropical fruit, the sleek chair nods to architect Eero Saarinen’s swerving Kresge Auditorium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, built in 1953.

Minimal in appearance, the Coconut lounge chair comprises only a few materials: a molded plastic shell, a single leather cushion and a trio of chrome legs. The chair was created in 1955 for Herman Miller, where Nelson served as director of design until 1972. In his studio, Nelson and his designers produced a wealth of hits, including benches, pendant lights and more for Herman Miller and other clients. In his director role, Nelson also supervised a team of now-legendary mid-century modern designers, such as Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard and others.

Herman Miller founder D.J. De Pree hired Nelson in 1945 after having read about a modular storage system that he conceived with architect Henry Wright — it was featured in a joint editorial project from Life and Architectural Forum. Nelson continued to operate his design studio while at Herman Miller, and today, several of the pieces designed at George Nelson Associates, Inc. are in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, including the Coconut lounge chair.

Architect, designer, and writer George Nelson was a central figure in the mid-century American modernist design movement; and his thoughts influenced not only the furniture we live with, but also how we live.

Nelson came to design via journalism and literature. Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Yale in 1931, he won the Prix de Rome fellowship, and spent his time in Europe writing magazine articles that helped bring stateside recognition to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Gio Ponti, Le Corbusier and other canonical modernist architects. In the 1940s, Nelson wrote texts that suggested such now-commonplace ideas as open-plan houses, storage walls and family rooms. D.J. De Pree, the owner of the furniture maker Herman Miller, was so impressed by Nelson that in 1944 — following the sudden death of Gilbert Rohde, who had introduced the firm to modern design in the 1930s — he invited Nelson to join the company as its design director.

There Nelson’s curatorial design talents came to the fore. To Herman Miller he brought such eminent creators as Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and the textile and furniture designer Alexander Girard. Thanks to a clever contract, at the same time as he directed Herman Miller he formed a New York design company, George Nelson & Associates, that sold furniture designs to the Michigan firm, as well as its competitor, the Howard Miller Clock Company. Nelson’s New York team of designers (who were rarely individually credited) would create such iconic pieces as the Marshmallow sofa, the Coconut chair, the Ball clock, the Bubble lamp series and the many cabinets and beds that comprise the sleek Thin-Edge line.

For dedicated collectors, as well as for interior designers who look beyond “the look,” there is a “cool-factor” inherent to vintage pieces from George Nelson and others. Nelson was in on it from the start, and it’s valuable to have a piece that was there with him. But still, as is evident from the offerings from dealers on these pages, in any of the designs, in any iteration whose manufacture Nelson oversaw and encouraged, there are shining elements of lightness, elegance, sophistication — and a little bit of swagger. George Nelson felt confident in his ideas about design and didn’t mind letting the world know.