GIO PONTI
GIO PONTI
Can you believe it’s been nearly 70-80 years since the Modernist movement started? It was around the 1940s that designers and architects first embraced this style, but it wasn’t called “modernism” just yet.
Design’s shift toward clean lines, minimalism, and natural materiality took hold in interiors, furniture, ceramics, and architecture. Although each designer had his or her own unique approach, these were the features that characterized modern design over the following thirty years.
This year, we’re sharing twelve of the top masters behind this major movement — one for every month of 2019. First up:
Giovanni (Gio) Ponti (1891-1979)
Italy
Architect, Designer, Artist
(source)
Gio Ponti was born in Milan in the late 1800s and is credited as being the most influential Italian designer of his time. Although he studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, his professional career began as the artistic director of the ceramics company, Richard Ginori.
There, his initial work was influenced by classicism until 1925, when he transitioned to the Art Deco and Modernist styles.
In these years, Ponti coined “forma finita,” his theory that a design is complete when nothing can be added or taken away. You can see evidence of this concept in his furniture lines, where vestiges of Art Deco’s geometric forms pave the way for modern simplicity. The resulting creative “lightness” of design is uniquely Ponti.
His other notable accomplishments include founding the still-circulating architecture and design magazine Domus in 1928, as well as designing the iconic Pirelli Tower in Milan. He is still widely revered in the industry today — we saw his work on exhibit in Paris just last November!
Superleggera chair design for Cassina, 1957
Bureau Giordano Chiesa, 1953
Console collaboration, Gio Ponti and Paolo de Poli, 1942
Ocean Liner Armchair, Heritage Collection, 1951
Dezza armchair, 1965 (source)