Simon

Simon is one of the companies founded by Dino Gavina, the Bolognese entrepreneur seen as one of the fathers of Italian design, who also created Gavina and, with Cesare Cassina, Flos. Like all his ventures, Simon was born from the idea of combining art and industrial production.

Dino Gavina

Gavina, born in 1922, began as a theatre set designer in Bologna. Through Lucio Fontana he met architects in Milan such as Carlo Mollino, Pier Giacomo Castiglioni and Carlo Scarpa, and in 1960 he founded Gavina SpA, with Scarpa as chairman: it made furniture by the Castiglionis, Tobia Scarpa and the Japanese designer Kazuhide Takahama, and persuaded Marcel Breuer to put the Wassily and Cesca chairs back into production. In 1968 he sold Gavina to the American company Knoll.

Studio Simon

That same year, 1968, Gavina founded Studio Simon, later Simon International, with Maria Simoncini. Among the first products was Kazuhide Takahama's Tulu chair, in chromed steel rod; Takahama, Gavina's friend and collaborator throughout his life, also designed the company's factory at Calcinelli di Saltara, near Pesaro. The catalogue also included furniture by Carlo Scarpa. Alongside the industrial business, Gavina kept working with artists: he was close to Marcel Duchamp, to whom he dedicated a cultural centre in Bologna, and hosted Man Ray, Sebastián Matta and Julio Le Parc in his factories.

Simon and Cassina

Gavina later started another venture, Paradisoterrestre, in 1983; he died in Bologna in 2007, and Maria Simoncini in 2010. In 2013 the Simon brand was bought by Cassina, which brought the furniture of Carlo Scarpa and Kazuhide Takahama into its own catalogue.

Sources

• Wikipedia – Dino Gavina (it)
• Wikipedia – Gavina (azienda) (it)
• Wikipedia – Kazuhide Takahama (it)
• Wikipedia – Cassina (azienda) (it)