BISHOP : 25 YEARS
PROJECT ROOM #17
2024

Born in 1999, the Bishop is India Mahdavi’s signature stool.
Designed and crafted in France, it celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2024.

The Bishop takes its name from the chess piece that moves diagonally, defying straight lines. Serving as both a stool and a side table, it comes in over twenty colors and is suitable for indoor and outdoors.
Over the years, India Mahdavi has continuously played with the Bishop’s iconic form, experimenting with materials and scaling. It has evolved into the Baby Bishop stool and the larger Cocktail table. The collection also includes innovative accessories, such as the Peanut tray, which unites two Bishops into one, and the COD (Direct Object Complement), a tray that transforms the Bishop into a functional side table. Today, the Bishop has become a distinctive family of furniture with a special place in India Mahdavi’s collection.

India Mahdavi reflects: ‘‘I designed the Bishop stool because I wanted something that didn’t exist—a sculptural stool that, when placed together, could resemble a chess game. I was inspired by the chessboard’s bishop. The original version of the stool had a strong graphic quality but was too specific for wider production. I reworked it into a more versatile piece, a hybrid between a stool and a side table. During a hotel project in Mexico City, I began exploring ceramic—a material that is cool to the touch yet visually warm. This led to my first ceramic piece, which inspired many other designers to embrace the material.’’

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, India Mahdavi’s Project Room will host a retrospective, ‘Bishop: 25 Years’ showcasing its most iconic variations. The exhibit invites playfulness, challenging space and proportions, and reminding us of the Bishop’s true nature: to play and defy.