{"id":65625,"date":"2026-11-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartdesignselection.com\/?p=65625"},"modified":"2026-11-01T09:48:45","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:48:45","slug":"gio-ponti-vie-oeuvre-et-creations-iconiquesgio-ponti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartdesignselection.com\/en\/gio-ponti-vie-oeuvre-et-creations-iconiquesgio-ponti\/","title":{"rendered":"Gio Ponti: life, work and iconic designs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a photograph by Giorgio Casali, a child lifts a chair with the tip of a single finger. The chair weighs one point seven kilograms. It is called the Superleggera, “super light”, and Cassina has been making it since 1957. Its designer, Gio Ponti, spent his life proving that things could be lighter, brighter and more joyful, whether he was drawing a skyscraper, a cathedral, a cup or a coffee machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Architect, designer, editor and occasional painter, Ponti is the great all-rounder of Italian design. He founded the magazine that introduced that design to the world, built one of Europe’s most beautiful skyscrapers and designed thousands of objects. For anyone who loves interiors he is a treasure trove: rarely has an architect thought so carefully about every detail of the home, or with so much colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Milanese with a limitless appetite<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Giovanni Ponti, known as Gio, was born in Milan on 18 November 1891. After the First World War he completed his architecture studies at the Politecnico di Milano and opened his first practice in 1921. He quickly refused to choose between disciplines. He loved architecture, but also painting, ceramics, glass, silverware and textiles, and he meant to do it all.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Portrait
Gio Ponti in the 1950s. Photo: unknown author (Mondadori)<\/a>, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That curiosity became his method. For Ponti there were no major and minor arts: a door handle deserved as much attention as a facade, and industry could make beautiful things if an artist showed it how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard-Ginori, porcelain as a laboratory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1923 the porcelain manufacturer Richard-Ginori appointed him artistic director. He was thirty-one, with almost everything to prove. He renewed the house’s repertoire, mixing classical motifs with modern fantasy, antique figures and imaginary architecture, and rethought its methods of mass production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Success came at once. His pieces won awards at the 1925 International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris, the very exhibition that gave its name to Art Deco<\/a>. It launched his international career, and proved that a factory-made object could have the poetry of a one-off piece.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Richard-Ginori
A 1925 Richard-Ginori vase, peopled with figures and imaginary architecture. Photo: Sailko<\/a>, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n \n \n
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