Giò Ponti - chair prototype

Dimension:  48x48x91h cm

Material: ebony, national walnut, briar

Stoned, not veneered

Second half of the twentieth century

Available: 8 pieces

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«Italians were born to build. Building is the character of their race, the form of their mind, the vocation and commitment of their destiny, the expression of their existence, the supreme and immortal sign of their history.»
(Gio Ponti, Architectural vocation of the Italians, 1940)

The "Superleggera" chair, designed by Ponti in 1955 for Cassina
Son of Enrico Ponti and Giovanna Rigone, Gio Ponti graduated in architecture from the then Regio Istituto Tecnico Superiore (the future Polytechnic of Milan) in 1921, after having suspended his studies during his participation in the First World War. In the same year he married the noble Giulia Vimercati, from an ancient family from Brianza, with whom he had four children (Lisa, Giovanna, Letizia and Giulio).

Twenties and thirties

Casa Marmont in Milan, 1934

The Montecatini palace in Milan, 1938
Initially, in 1921, he opened a studio together with the architects Mino Fiocchi and Emilio Lancia (1926-1933), and then moved on to collaborate with the engineers Antonio Fornaroli and Eugenio Soncini (1933-1945). In 1923 he participated in the I Biennial of Decorative Arts held at the ISIA in Monza and was subsequently involved in the organization of the various Triennials, both in Monza and Milan.

In the 1920s Richard Ginori began his activity as a designer in the ceramic industry, reworking the company's industrial design strategy overall; with his ceramics he won the "Grand Prix" at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925 [. In those years, his production was based more on classical themes, showing himself closer to the Novecento movement, an exponent of rationalism. In the same years he also began his editorial activity: in 1928 he founded the magazine Domus, a magazine which he directed until his death, except in the period 1941-1948 in which he was director of Stile. Together with Casabella, Domus will represent the center of the cultural debate on Italian architecture and design of the second half of the twentieth century.

"Barbara" coffee service designed by Ponti for Richard Ginori in 1930
Ponti's activity in the 1930s extended to the organization of the V Milan Triennale (1933) and the creation of sets and costumes for the Teatro alla Scala[6]. He participated in the Industrial Design Association (ADI) and was among the supporters of the Compasso d'Oro award, promoted by the La Rinascente department store. He received, among other things, numerous national and international awards, finally becoming a tenured professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic of Milan in 1936, a chair which he held until 1961 [citation needed]. In 1934 the Italian Academy awarded him the "Mussolini prize" for the arts.

In 1937 he commissioned Giuseppe Cesetti to create a large ceramic floor, exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, in a room where there are also works by Gino Severini and Massimo Campigli.

Forties and fifties

In 1941, during the Second World War, Ponti founded the architecture and design magazine of the fascist regime STILE. In the magazine clearly supporting the Rome-Berlin axis, Ponti does not fail to write in his editorials comments such as "In the post-war period, Italy has enormous tasks... in the relations with its exemplary ally, Germany", "our great allies [Nazi Germany] give us an example of tenacious, very serious, organized and orderly application" (from Stile, August 1941, page 3). Style, it will last a few years and will close after the Anglo-American Invasion of Italy and the defeat of the Italian-German Axis. In 1948, Ponti reopened the magazine Domus, where he would remain as editor until his death.

In 1951, he joined the studio together with Fornaroli, the architect Alberto Rosselli [9]. In 1952 he founded the Ponti-Fornaroli-Rosselli studio with the architect Alberto Rosselli[10]. Here began the period of most intense and fruitful activity in both architecture and design, abandoning the frequent links to the neoclassical past and focusing on more innovative ideas.

Sixties and seventies

Between 1966 and 1968 he collaborated with the production company Ceramica Franco Pozzi of Gallarate.

The Communication Study Center and Archive of Parma preserves a collection dedicated to Gio Ponti, consisting of 16,512 sketches and drawings, 73 models and maquettes. The Ponti archive[10] was donated by the architect's heirs (donors Anna Giovanna Ponti, Letizia Ponti, Salvatore Licitra, Matteo Licitra, Giulio Ponti) in 1982. This fund, whose design material documents the works created by the Milanese designer from the 1920s to the 1970s, it is public and accessible.

Gio Ponti died in Milan in 1979: he rests in the monumental cemetery of Milan. His name has merited inscription in the famedium of the same cemetery.

Style

Gio Ponti has designed many objects in the most varied fields, from theater sets, to lamps, chairs, kitchen objects, to the interiors of transatlantic liners. Initially in the art of ceramics his design reflected the Viennese Secession [citation needed] and argued that traditional decoration and modern art were not incompatible. His reconnection and use of the values of the past found supporters in the fascist regime, inclined to safeguard the "Italian identity" and recover the ideals of "Romanism", which then expressed itself fully in architecture with the simplified neoclassicism of Piacentini. La Pavoni coffee machine, designed by Ponti in 1948 In 1950, Ponti began to engage in the design of "equipped walls", that is, entire prefabricated walls that made it possible to satisfy different needs, integrating devices and equipment that had until then been autonomous. We also remember Ponti for the project of the "Superleggera" seat of 1955 (produced by Cassina), created starting from an already existing and usually handcrafted object: the Chiavari Chair, improved in materials and performance. Despite this, Ponti built the School of Mathematics in the university city of Rome in 1934 (one of the first works of Italian Rationalism) and in 1936 the first of the Montecatini office buildings in Milan. The latter, with highly personal characteristics, is influenced by the architect's vocation as a designer in the architectural details, of refined elegance. In the fifties, Ponti's style became more innovative and, while remaining classical in Montecatini's second office building (1951), it was fully expressed in his most significant building: the Pirelli skyscraper in Piazza Duca d'Aosta in Milan (1955 -1958). The work was built around a central structure designed by Nervi (127.1 metres). The building appears like a slender and harmonious sheet of crystal, which cuts the architectural space of the sky, designed on a balanced curtain wall and whose long sides narrow into almost two vertical lines. This work, even with its character of "excellence", rightfully belongs to the Modern Movement in Italy.