Gio Ponti

Giovanni "Gio" Ponti ( ͡ʒo18 November 1891 – 16 September 1979) was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, teacher, writer and publisher.

During his career, which spanned six decades, Ponti built more than a hundred buildings in Italy and in the rest of the world. He designed a considerable number of decorative art and design objects as well as furniture. Thanks to the magazine '' Domus'', which he founded in 1928 and directed almost all his life, and thanks to his active participation in exhibitions such as the Milan Triennial, he was also an enthusiastic advocate of an Italian-style art of living and a major player in the renewal of Italian design after the Second World War. From 1936 to 1961, he taught at the Milan Polytechnic School and trained several generations of designers. Ponti also contributed to the creation in 1954 of one of the most important design awards: the Compasso d'Oro prize. Ponti died on 16 September 1979.

His most famous works are the Pirelli Tower, built from 1956 to 1960 in Milan in collaboration with the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, the Villa Planchart in Caracas and the Superleggera chair, produced by Cassina in 1957.

Early life and education

Ponti was born in Milan in 1891 to Enrico Ponti and Giovanna (Rigone). His studies were interrupted by his military service during World War I. He served as a Capitan in the Pontonier Corps (Corps of Engineers) from 1916 to 1918 and was awarded both the Bronze Medal of Military Valor and the Italian Military Cross.

Ponti graduated with a degree in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano University in 1921. The same year, he married Giulia Vimercati, with whom he had four children, Lisa, Giovanna, Letizia, and Giulio, and eight grandchildren.

Architecture and interior design

Ponti began his architectural career in partnership with Mino Fiocchi and Emilio Lancia from 1923 through 1927, and then through 1933 with Lancia only, as ''Studio Ponti e Lancia PL''. In these years he was influenced by and associated with the Milanese neoclassical Novecento Italiano movement. In 1925, Ponti participated in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, with the porcelain manufacturer. On this occasion, he made friends with Tony Bouilhet, director of the silversmith company Christofle. The family Bouilhet who entrusted him with his first architectural commission abroad, with the construction of the Ange Volant (1926–1928, in collaboration with Emilio Lancia and Tomaso Buzzi), a country house located on the edge of the Saint-Cloud golf course, on the outskirts of Paris. As he built his first building in Milan, via Randaccio (1925–1926), the Ange Volant was an opportunity for Ponti to experiment with his personal conception of the Italian-style house, the principles of which he gathered in his book ''La Casa all'Italiana'' published in 1933. Other outputs of the time include the 1928 ''Monument to the Fallen'' with the Novecento architects Giovanni Muzio, Tomaso Buzzi, Ottavio Cabiati, Emilio Lancia and Alberto Alpago Novello

The 1930s were years of intense activity for Ponti. He was involved in many projects, particularly in his native city of Milan. With the construction of the Borletti funeral chapel in 1931, he started to adopt a modernist shift. By removing all ornament, Ponti moved towards formal simplification where he sought to make style and structure coincide. The ten "case tipiche" (typical houses), built in Milan between 1931 and 1938, were also close to Rationalist Modernism while retaining features of Mediterranean houses like balconies, terraces, loggias and pergolas. Spacious, equipped and built with modern materials, they met the requirements of the new Milanese bourgeoisie. The construction of the Rasini building (1933–1936) with its flat roofs marked the end of his partnership with Emilio Lancia around 1933. He then joined forces with engineers Antonio Fornaroli and Eugenio Soncini to form Studio Ponti-Fornaroli-Soncini which lasted until 1945.

Still in Milan, the Littoria Tower (now Branca Tower), topped by a panoramic restaurant, was built in 1933 on the occasion of the Fifth Triennial of Decorative Arts, which inaugurated its new headquarters built by Giovanni Muzio. With the first office building of the Montecatini chemical group (1935–1938), for which he used the latest techniques and materials produced by the firm, in order to reflect the company's avant-garde spirit, Ponti designed, on an unprecedented scale (the offices housed 1,500 workstations), a building in every detail, from architecture to furniture.

Ponti is also involved in the project to expand the new university campus in Rome, led by the urban planner Marcello Piacentini by designing the School of Mathematics school, inaugurated in 1935. Ponti chose bright and functional spaces with simple lines, including a fan-shaped building that housed three amphitheaters. From 1934 to 1942, he worked at the University of Padua, with the construction and interior design of the new Faculty of Arts, Il Liviano (1934–1940), then the artistic direction and interior design of the Aula Magna, the basilica and the rectorate of the Palazzo Bo. In the late 1930s, Ponti deepened his research on Mediterranean housing by collaborating with writer and architect Bernard Rudofsky. Together, they imagined in 1938 the ''Albergo nel bosco'' on the island of Capri, a hotel designed as a village of house-bedrooms, all unique and scattered in the landscape.

At the turn of the 1940s, architectural projects continued initially for Ponti, with the construction of the Columbus Clinic (1939–1949) in Milan, and the interior design of the Palazzo del Bo at the University of Padua where he carried out a monumental fresco on the stairs leading to the rectorate. From 1943, due to the Second World War, his activity as an architect slowed down. This period corresponded to a period of reflection in which Ponti devoted himself to writing and designing sets and costumes for theatre and opera, such as Igor Stravinsky's ''Pulcinella'' for the Triennial Theatre in 1940, or Christoph Willibald Gluck's '' Orfeo ed Euridice'' for the Milan Scala in 1947. He also planned a film adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's ''Enrico IV'' for Louis Jouvet and Anton Giulio Bragaglia.

After World War 2, with the emergence of the Italian economic boom, the 1950s were a busy time for Ponti, who traveled abroad. He participated in the redevelopment and interior design of several Italian liners ( Conte Grande et Conte Biancamano, 1949, Andrea Doria and Giulio Cesare, 1950, Oceania, 1951), showcases the know-how of his country. Construction continued in Milan. In 1952, he created a new agency with Antonio Fornaroli and his son-in-law Alberto Rosselli. This vast hangar was designed as an architecture laboratory, an exhibition space and a space for the presentation of studies and models. After the death of Rosselli, he continued to work with his longtime partner Fornaroli. A block away, in via Dezza, Ponti built a nine-story apartment building, which housed his family. From 1950 to 1955, he was also in charge of the urban planning project for the Harar-Dessiè social housing district in Milan with architects Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini. For this complex, he designed two buildings with highly colored profiles, one of which was designed in collaboration with the architect Gigi Gho.

With the help of engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, a concrete specialist who advised him on the structure, he built with his studio and Arturo Danusso the Pirelli tower (1956–1960). Facing Milan's main station, this 31-story, skyscraper housed the headquarters of Pirelli, a company specializing in tyres and rubber products. At the time of its inauguration, and for a few months, it was the tallest building in Europe. Together with the Galfa Tower by Melchiorre Bega (1956–1959) and the Velasca Tower (1955–1961) of the BBPR Group, this skyscraper changed Milan's landscape. From 1953 to 1957, he built the ''Hotel della Città et de la Ville'' and the ''Centro Studi Fondazione Livio e Maria Garzanti'', in Forlì (Italy), by the assignment of Aldo Garzanti, a famous Italian publisher.

In the 1950s, and thanks to his role in the Domus Magazine, Ponti was internationally known and commissions were multiplying, with constructions in Venezuela, Sweden, Iraq and projects in Brazil. In New York City, he set up the Alitalia airline agency (1958) on Fifth Avenue and was entrusted with the construction of the 250-seat auditorium of the Time-Life building (1959). In Caracas, Ponti had freedom to accomplish one of his masterpieces: the Villa Planchart (1953–1957), a house designed as a work of art on the heights of the capital, immersed in a tropical garden. Conceived as large-scale abstract sculpture, it can be seen from the inside as an uninterrupted sequence of points of view where light and color prevail. Outside, the walls were like suspended screens that defined the space of the house. At night, a lighting system highlighted its contours. All the materials and the furniture, chosen or designed by Ponti, were shipped from Italy. The overall effect has been noted for its "lightness": "the Villa Planchard sits so lightly on the hillside above Caracas that it is known as the 'butterfly house.'" A few miles away, Ponti designed for Blanca Arreaza, the Diamantina (1954–1956), so-called because of the diamond-shaped tiles that partially cover its facade. This villa has since been destroyed.

In the field of interior design, Ponti multiplied inventions and favoured multifunctional solutions; In 1951, he developed an ideal hotel room for the Milan Triennial, in which he presented a "dashboard" bed headboard composed of shelves, some of which were mobile, and control buttons for electricity or radio. He then applied this solution to domestic spaces and offices, with "organised walls". Next came the "fitted windows", for the manufacturer Altamira in particular and that he used for his apartment via Dezza. With its vertical and horizontal frames through which shelves, bookcases and frames can be arranged, the "fitted window" became the fourth transparent wall of a room and ensured a transition between the inside and the outside.

The 1960s and 1970s were dominated by international architectural projects in places like Tehran, Islamabad and Hong Kong, where Ponti developed new architectural solutions: the façades of his buildings became lighter and seemed to be detached like suspended screens. With the church of San Francesco al Fopponino in Milan (1961–1964), he created his first façade with perforated hexagonal openings. The sky and light became important protagonists of his architecture. This theatricality was reinforced by the omnipresence of ceramics, whose uses he reinvented both indoors and outdoors. In collaboration with the Milanese firm Ceramica Joo, he created diamond-shaped tiles with which he covered most of his facades (Villa Arreaza in Caracas, 1954–1956, Villa Nemazee in Tehran, 1957–1964, Shui Hing department store in Hong Kong, 1963, San Carlo Borromeo Hospital Church, 1964–1967 and Montedoria building, 1964–1970 in Milan). With Ceramica D'Agostino, he designed tiles with blue and white or green and white motifs that once combined create different more than a hundred motifs. They were used for the interior decoration of the hotels Parco dei Principi in Sorrento (1960) and in Rome (1961-1964). The Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento was one of the first design hotel in Italy. Ponti also offered to ''Domus'' readers detailed plans of a circular house called Il scarabeo sotto la foglia (1964– The beetle under a leaf). This small oval building was covered with white and green ceramic tiles, both inside and outside, including the roof. Its envelope reflected the surrounding landscape and blended into it, like the shell of a beetle. In 1966, collector Giobatta Meneguzzo built his version of the beetle under a leaf in the province of Vicenza and entrusted the Italian designer Nanda Vigo for the interior design. With the Bijenkorf department store in Eindhoven in the Netherlands (1966–1969), Ponti proposed another solution, by creating a tiled façade for an existing building. Modular, it was enlivened thanks to the non-uniform arrangement of its openings with various shapes. Lit from behind, the facade turned into a bright screen at night. Facing the building, Ponti designed a living square where the inhabitants could meet and rest on sculptures built for this purpose. Ponti also deepened his reflection on the skyscraper with a project of triangular and coloured towers (1967–1969).

In the last years of his life, Ponti was more than ever in search of transparency and lightness. He saw his facades as folded and perforated sheets of paper with geometric shapes. The 1970s began with the inauguration in 1970 of the Taranto Cathedral, a white rectangular building topped with a huge concrete facade perforated with openings, such that it is referred to locally as "the sail." In 1971, he participated in the construction of the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, taking care of the building's exterior envelope. He also submitted in 1971 a project for the future Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris by proposing to model an axis in the capital linking the Baltard pavilions in les Halles pavilions to the future modern art museum thanks to an art "garden".Paolo Monti