Antella Console Table by Kazuhide Takahama for Gavina, 1975

Born in 1930, Takahama studied architecture in Tokyo and after graduating he joined the studio of Kazuo Fujioka.
In 1957 he came to Italy to oversee the architectural layout of the pavilion with which Japan participated for the first time at the XI Triennale di Milano, where he met the designer and entrepreneur Dino Gavina (1922-2007) with whom he undertook a professional collaboration that it would last a lifetime.
Consequently in 1964 he moved to Bologna and went to work as a designer of furniture and lamps in the San Lazzaro factory. In 1968 Gavina sold his company Gavina SPA to Knoll International, with the related plant in Foligno designed by Achille Castiglioni, and founded together with Maria Simoncini (1927-2010) the manufacturer Simon international (later acquired by Cassina) and the year later the exhibition and commercial center named after Marcel Duchamp opened in Bologna with the participation of the famous Dadaist painter and photographer Man Ray.
In these new locations, Takahama was able to collaborate with the famous architect and designer Carlo Scarpa and in the following years he carried out an intense professional activity that led to the creation of various types of furniture and lamps, which still constitute as many works of art, characterized always from a great simplicity and formal cleanliness and very often rigorous like the Zen compositions. His colleagues said he was so quiet that he was called “the stone man” but his presence was distinctly noticeable. Takahama continued to carry out his activity as a designer until his death in 2010.