Giovanni "Gio" Ponti (Italian pronunciation: [ˌdʒo pˈponti]; 18 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, and was himself awarded the prize in 1956. 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.
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 Captain 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 Richard-Ginori. On this occasion, he made friends with Tony Bouilhet, director of the silversmith company Christofle. The Bouilhet family 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.
For the 1933 Fifth Triennial of Decorative Arts in Milan, Giovanni Muzio designed the Palazzo dell'Arte in Parco Sempione, a museum and theatre to host the displays. Adjacent to the palace, a steel tower-spire was commissioned from Gio Ponti. The 108-meter-high (354 ft) Littoria Tower (or Lictor's Tower, but now Branca Tower), was meant to resemble the bundles that formed the fasces. It was topped by a panoramic restaurant. Putatively, the tower height was limited by Mussolini so as not to exceed the height of the Madonnina statue atop the Duomo.
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, inaugurated in 1935. Ponti chose bright and functional spaces with simple lines, including a fan-shaped building that housed three amphitheatres. 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.
In 1941, during World War II, Ponti founded the architecture and design magazine of the fascist regime, STILE. In the magazine, which supported the Rome-Berlin Axis, Ponti did not hesitate to write editorials with comments such as, "In the post-war period, Italy will have enormous tasks ahead... in relation to its exemplary ally, Germany," and "Our great allies [Nazi Germany] give us an example of tenacious, serious, organized, and orderly application" (Stile, August 1941, p. 3). Stile would last only a few years and cease publication after the Anglo-American invasion of Italy and the defeat of the Italo-German Axis. In 1948, Ponti relaunched the magazine Domus, where he remained as editor until his death.
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 travelled 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), showcasing 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.