Japan
Taichiro Nakai is a Japanese designer. But the historiography has clearly neglected him. He is one of the figures in the post-war industrial design landscape in Japan. He worked to the international recognition of Japanese design.
One of the only elements known about Taichiro Nakai is this one: he participated to the famous Italian competition, the « Prima Mostra Selletiva del Mobile » in Cantù from 17th September to 5th October 1955. He was very successful. That year, the jury was composed of very famous international designers : Italian designers Gio Ponti (1891-1979) and Carlo De Carli (1910-1999), the Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) and the Danish designer Finn Juhl (1912-1989). They awarded Taichiro Nakai with a special price fir his lounge set.
He designed a space composed of libraries, a coffee table, armchairs, a freeform sofa and lamps. The whole display made a splash thanks to the perfect mix and match between Italian lines and Japanese simplicity. All the pieces were manufactured by a local company, La Permanente Mobili.
Taichiro Nakai represents perfectly the mindset of Japanese designers after the World War II, inspiring by the international modern design and adapting it to Japanese traditions.
