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  • Knoll Designer Tobia Scarpa

Knoll Designer Bios

Tobia Scarpa

b. Italy, 1935

The son of the famous Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, Tobia Scarpa trained in Venice before launching his career as a as a designer of lamps, furniture, and glass objects. In the early 1960s, he began to design modern furniture based on the principles of Le Corbusier. He and his wife Afra, designed for several of the biggest names in Italian design including Cassina and Gavina SpA,which his father directed.

With the 1968 acquisition of Gavina, the Bastiano Lounge collection was introduced to the Knoll catalog. The simple, comfortable design worked well with modern and traditional interiors alike and was one the most successful products of that time period. Several designers cite the Bastiano Lounge as a major influence, most often complementing the successful harmony of soft cushions and a hard exoskeleton. Also introduced at that time was Scarpa’s Andre Table.