36 Facts About Gio Ponti

Giovanni "Gio" Ponti was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, teacher, writer and publisher.

Gio Ponti designed a considerable number of decorative art and design objects as well as furniture.

Gio Ponti contributed to the creation in 1954 of one of the most important design awards: the Compasso d'Oro prize.

Gio Ponti's studies were interrupted by his military service during World War I He served as a Capitan in the Pontonier Corps from 1916 to 1918 and was awarded both the Bronze Medal of Military Valor and the Italian Military Cross.

Gio Ponti graduated with a degree in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano University in 1921.

Gio 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 Gio Ponti e Lancia PL.

In 1925, Gio Ponti participated in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, with the porcelain manufacturer.

Gio Ponti was involved in many projects, particularly in his native city of Milan.

Gio Ponti then joined forces with engineers Antonio Fornaroli and Eugenio Soncini to form Studio Ponti-Fornaroli-Soncini which lasted until 1945.

Gio Ponti is 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.

Gio Ponti chose bright and functional spaces with simple lines, including a fan-shaped building that housed three amphitheaters.

Gio Ponti planned a film adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's Enrico IV for Louis Jouvet and Anton Giulio Bragaglia.

Gio Ponti participated in the redevelopment and interior design of several Italian liners, showcases the know-how of his country.

In Caracas, Gio Ponti had freedom to accomplish one of his masterpieces: the Villa Planchart, a house designed as a work of art on the heights of the capital, immersed in a tropical garden.

All the materials and the furniture, chosen or designed by Gio Ponti, were shipped from Italy.

Gio Ponti then applied this solution to domestic spaces and offices, with "organised walls".

The 1960s and 1970s were dominated by international architectural projects in places like Tehran, Islamabad and Hong Kong, where Gio Ponti developed new architectural solutions: the facades of his buildings became lighter and seemed to be detached like suspended screens.

Gio Ponti offered to Domus readers detailed plans of a circular house called Il scarabeo sotto la foglia.

Gio Ponti saw his facades as folded and perforated sheets of paper with geometric shapes.

Gio Ponti 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".

In 1923, Gio Ponti was appointed artistic director of Richard Ginori, one of Italy's leading porcelain manufacturers, based in Milan and Sesto Fiorentino, changing the company's whole output through the involvement of some of the main Italian artists of the time, including the sculptor Salvatore Saponaro.

Gio Ponti completely renewed the iconographic repertoire by freely revisiting the classical tradition.

Gio Ponti rationalized the production system of the pieces while maintaining their high quality of execution.

Gio Ponti founded the Labirinto group, with Tomaso Buzzi, Pietro Chiesa and Paolo Venini, among others.

Gio Ponti created in particular a cylindrical lamp surrounded by crystal discs and mirrors and the famous Bilia Lamp.

At the turn of the 1950s, Gio Ponti deployed a prolific creation where he sought to combine aesthetic and functional requirements: the espresso machine for La Pavoni in 1948 and the Visetta sewing machine for Visa, textiles for JSA, door handles for Olivari, a range of sanitary facilities for Ideal Standard, cutlery for Krupp Italiana and Christofle, lighting for Arredoluce and furniture for the Swedish department store Nordiska Kompaniet.

Gio Ponti invented lighting fixtures for Fontana Arte, Artemide, Lumi, and Guzzini, but fabrics for JSA and a dinner service for Ceramica Franco Pozzi.

In 1970, Gio Ponti presented his concept of an adapted house at Eurodomus 3 in Milan, where the house is centred around a spacious room with sliding partitions, around which the rooms and service areas gravitate.

The Gabriela chair with a reduced seat, as well as the Apta furniture series for Walter Gio Ponti, illustrated this new way of life.

Gio Ponti continued to create wall and floor coverings whose graphic rendering becomes a work of art in itself.

Gio Ponti presented the work of Charles Eames and of the decorator Piero Fornasetti.

Thanks to his involvement in numerous exhibitions, Gio Ponti established himself as a major player in the development of post-war design and the diffusion of "Made in Italy".

In 1957, Gio Ponti published Amate l'architettura, his seminal work where he defined the expression of a finished form that was simple, light, and did not allow any possibility of extension, addition, repetition or superposition.

Gio Ponti coordinated the Italian and European editions of the Eurodomus design exhibitions, including the exhibition "Formes italiennes" in 1967 at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

At Eurodomus 2 in Turin in 1968, Gio Ponti presented a model of a city, Autilia, for which he imagined a continuous vehicle circulation system.

Gio Ponti obtained the Accademia d'Italia Art Prize for his artistic merits, as well as a gold medal from the Paris Academie d'Architecture.