Stilnovo Tokio Desk Lamp

Materials: Black plastic (ABS) square cube base with a built-in dimmer. Transformer 220 volt to 12 volt inside. 4 adjustable thin black rods. Half round black plastic lampshade. Aluminium reflector, porcelain socket.

Lampshade: 14 cm / 5.51”

Height: 64 cm / 25.19”

Base: 14 x 14 cm / 5.51 x 5.51”

Electricity: 1 bulb G5 halogen, 1 x 50 watt maximum, 12 volt.
Any type of G5 lamp can be used. Not a specific one preferred.

Period: 1980s.

Designer: Shigeaki Asahara in 1980.

Manufacturer: Stilnovo, Milan, Italy.

Other versions: The Stilnovo Tokio desk lamp exists in black, black & red and white. The lamp is provided with a slide switch.

Shigeaki Asahara

Designer Shigeaki Asahara was born in 1948 in Tokyo, but studied sculptural art in Turin, Italy in the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino (Academy of Fine Arts).

In the seventies he worked for Studio ABACO, an architecture and interior design studio. His first lamps were a design for Cristal Art, the Sacchetto (bag) table and floor lamp, around 1977.

A few years later he started as a freelancer and designed this Stilnovo Tokio desk lamp in 1980. It was was selected for the Compasso d’Oro, the most important design award in Italy. The Tokio desk lamp is also part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

Other lamps he designed for Stilnovo are the Samurai table and floor lamp, the Ziggurat table and floor lamps, the Luna lamp series and the Palomar floor lamp. Also the Bascule pendant lamp and the Z-168 lamp are from his hand.

Other companies Shigeaki Asahara designed lamps for are: Lucitalia, Candle, Contact from Italy and Yamada Shomei, Ushio and Daiko from Japan.

Stilnovo

Founded in Milan in 1946 by Bruno Gatta, Stilnovo was one of the most important lighting company’s of Italy in the post World War II industry.
Stilnovo worked with a large number of leading designers, including Gaetano Sciolari, Joe Colombo, Gae Aulenti, Alberto Fraser, Ettore Sottsass, Danilo & Corrado Aroldi, Cini Boeri, Jonathan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, Antonio Macchi Cassia, Roberto Beretta and so on. The company ended business in 1988.

All Stilnovo lamps are marked with the Stilnovo name; many early pieces also include the original sticker “Stilnovo Milan”.

The new Stilnovo

The company is long gone but in 2017 “The Stilnovo Scientific Committee” is formed. The members are: Decio G.R. Carugati, Roberto Fiorato, Francesco Morace, Danilo Premoli, Franco Pagliarini and Andrea Cucci. The company is named: Stilnovo Italia Srl.

Text from the new Stilnovo website:

“In order to pick up the traces of Stilnovo and bring them into the future a Scientific Committee was formed. The team has already produced a Manifest with its definition of guidelines and necessary criteria for future creations. With indications for ideas about the identity of a brand name which does not ignore its historical past: on the contrary, it is exalted.

The recreation of important iconic pieces and the use of new stimuli of Italian and international design in order to create completely new pieces represent just some of the plans for Stilnovo, which in themselves will bring new stimuli and lively collaboration among craftsmen and planners in order to guarantee as always 100 % “Made in Italy” products.”