A father figure of Italian design, Gio Ponti (1891–1979) embodied the postwar spirit of optimism and invention. Born and raised in Milan, he studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano after serving in the First World War. His career went on to span architecture, furniture, industrial design and publishing, each approached with the same blend of rigour, curiosity and joy. For Ponti, creativity was a way of life rather than a profession – an act of continuous observation, drawing and making. He famously said: 'The most resistant element is not wood, is not stone, is not steel, is not glass. The most resistant element in building is art. Let's make something very beautiful.'

In Molteni’s documentary Loving Gio Ponti, his daughter Lisa Licitra Ponti remembered him as cheerful but strict, while the late artist Nanda Vigo recalled how he would rise at dawn to draw in bed before breakfast – the kind of daily discipline and passion for his work that defined his prolific, six-decade career.

Enzo Mari credited him with 'jump-starting' development in Italy when the country was at its lowest point after the war, championing a new alliance between craftsmanship, art and production. His was a life dedicated to beauty in all its forms: from porcelain to skyscrapers, from publishing to poetry.

Gio Ponti: the architect

Ponti’s architecture evolved throughout his life, from the classical symmetry of his early houses to the poised modernism of his later work. Yet even at his most rational, his buildings retained a sense of lyricism and light.

His own apartment on Via Dezza in Milan (1957) served as a testing ground for his ideas on modern living: a compact, flexible home of around 100 square metres, partitioned by sliding panels or 'accordion' doors and animated by a warm yellow palette, striped Melotti floors, and carefully orchestrated light. Ponti’s embrace of open-plan living was decades ahead of its time, reflecting his belief in spaces that could adapt to the rhythms of modern life.

The Montecatini Building (1936–38) – designed with Antonio Fornaroli and Eugenio Soncini – marked one of the first instances of total design in Italy – Ponti conceived everything from the marble facade to the office furniture and even technological systems.

Two decades later came the Pirelli Tower (1958), which still towers above Milan today. Designed with Pier Luigi Nervi, it is a postwar symbol of Italian ingenuity whose aerodynamic profile Ponti likened to the wing of an aeroplane. 'This building was born young,' he said, 'and it never will age, because simplicity is a virtue that cannot be bettered.'

The designer

Ponti’s design career began in the early 1920s when, fresh from university, he joined the historic porcelain maker Richard Ginori. Despite being young and inexperienced, he succeeded in revitalising the company’s fortunes by infusing traditional craftsmanship with surreal and painterly motifs – a union of art and industry that would define his approach.

It was at Ginori that he developed a fascination with the human hand – a motif that continued to resurface throughout his career, notably in his interiors and decorative arts of the 1960s. 'Ponti's hand represents the human ability to imagine, to go beyond the world of objects to enter those of theatre, poetry, and playfulness,' explains Salvatore Licitra, curator of the Gio Ponti Archives. 'They are a tribute to the craftsmanship of the artist's and ceramicist's ability to animate matter with his own hands.'

Furniture, for Ponti, was architecture in miniature. His Leggera chair (1951) for Cassina reimagined the humble Chiavari chair in slender ash and paved the way for his Superleggera (1957), which pushed the idea of lightness to its extreme. Weighing just 1.7kg, it was advertised being lifted with a child’s little finger, and was strong enough to withstand being thrown by Ponti from a fourth storey apartment building without breaking, so the story goes. For Ponti, true modernity lay in this poetic precision: objects reduced to their essence, yet never stripped of charm or humanity.

Architecture and design often merged seamlessly in his work. Take his ‘D.859.1’ table, which was originally designed as the centrepiece of his most extensive project in New York: an auditorium on the eighth-floor terrace of Harrison & Abramovitz's Time & Life Building. When it first opened its doors in 1959, Ponti's auditorium was the ultimate gathering place for the sharply suited businessman and the stage of high powered business meetings for Henry Luce’s Time Inc, then at the apex of a mighty media industry. Keen to establish his reputation in the US, Ponti used the commission to introduce a distilled vision of Italian modernity – light, elegant and unapologetically cultured – into a corporate setting.

Over his career he developed products for more than 120 companies, including typewriters, cutlery and even sanitaryware. Nothing escaped his eye – or his conviction that beauty should permeate every aspect of daily life.

The publisher

If Ponti helped define modern Italian design, Domus, the magazine he founded in 1928, gave it a voice. Still published today, the publicatrion is widely regarded as one of the most influential and first internationally successful Italian design and architecture magazines. Across more than 500 issues, Ponti celebrated his peers and protégés – among them Carlo Mollino, Lucio Fontana and Piero Fornasetti – and positioned design as a cultural pursuit rather than a commercial one.

As an editor and teacher, he was curious, generous and open-minded, even in old age seeking out younger figures like Alessandro Mendini and Ettore Sottsass. His writing radiated the same clarity as his drawings, often returning to a single belief: that architects must learn from artisans.

In his 1960 book In Praise of Architecture, Ponti urged architects to 'learn from all the artisans – from the marble cutter, the carpenter, the plasterer, the blacksmith – from all workers and craftsmen. Let him learn things made with the hands; nothing is born that is not first in the hands.'

Five Ponti masterpieces to know

La Cornuta Espresso Machine (1948)

Sculptural and voluptuous, designed for Pavoni as both tool and totem of modern life. Ponti was the first to adopt a horizontal layout for the espresso machine, replacing the traditional vertical boiler with a sleeker, more ergonomic form that anticipated the modern cafe bar aesthetic.

Dezza Armchair (1965)

With its modernist, squared lines balanced by curved armrests and slender, tapered legs, the Dezza’s design conveys a sense of movement. As a testament to its enduring appeal, it has remained in continuous production since its debut.

Villa Planchart, Caracas (1955)

Perched 'like a butterfly' above the Venezuelan city, the Villa Planchart was commissioned by art collectors Anala and Armando Planchart. It is a quintessential example of Ponti's 'humanistic modernism' and a total work of art – a Gesamtkunstwerk – where he designed the architecture, all the custom furniture, and many of the objects and details within it.

Hotel Parco dei Principi, Sorrento (1962)

In the 1960s, Ponti was at a late but highly productive stage in his career, still actively working across architecture, design, and publishing. This clifftop hotel is a blue-and-white Mediterranean masterpiece tiled with thirty unique ceramic patterns that remain in tact to this day.

Cathedral of Taranto (1964–70)

The Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio in Taranto is a lesser-known Ponti project from late in his career, featuring a 40-metre-high concrete facade recalling a sail, pierced with crosses and flooding the interior with southern light. The cathedral pays tribute to Taranto’s maritime heritage while distilling Ponti’s fascination with structure, symbolism and spirit.

Legacy

Ponti’s independence often put him at odds with his peers. Critics dismissed him as a 'stylist', yet it was precisely his independent spirit and refusal to follow dogma that made him timeless. He believed that beauty was not a luxury, but a human necessity – a conviction visible in every drawing, chair, and facade he touched.

'Essentialità' was one of Gio Ponti’s favourite words, and it’s key to understanding his whole philosophy. When Ponti spoke about 'essentiality' (l’essenzialità), he didn’t mean minimalism in the sense of stripping things bare. Rather, he meant arriving at the purest possible expression of an idea – removing excess until only what is vital, meaningful and joyful remains.

His hand continues to shape lives through the buildings and products he designed, many of which remain in production today with brands including Molteni & C, Poltrona Frau, Cassina, and Richard Ginori – a testament to the enduring clarity of his vision.

Whenever he was given free rein to create, Italian architect Gio Ponti would deliver a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), taking care of every element with a mix of rigour and humour that came to define his work. Using colour and geometry, he would tell a complete story that encompassed architecture, furniture and décor.

To celebrate his legacy, Molteni & C has launched a new collection of objects that honours Ponti’s small-scale work, and the way he was able to blend irony and history into his pieces.

Molteni&C unveils Gio Ponti Objects

Over the years, Molteni&C’s ongoing partnership with the Gio Ponti Archives has delivered some exquisite Ponti reissues, including armchairs and tables. Taking this collaboration down to a more intimate scale seemed like the next step, explains Francesca Molteni, who works with her family’s company as well as being an independent curator and filmmaker. ‘After more than ten years of collaboration with Ponti’s heirs on the reissue of his furniture, it seemed natural to continue the work of enhancing his design legacy, exploring an extraordinarily evocative part of his oeuvre: objects,’ she says.

The eight-piece collection, faithfully reproduced from the Gio Ponti Archives, features classic Ponti motifs: animals, hands and geometries in stainless steel and wood. These objects are ‘veritable microcosms of his architectural ideas, characterised by a profound artisanal and design value,’ says Molteni. ‘Each object, whether sculptural or functional, reflects the interplay of geometry and spatial reinterpretation that defined his work. These are objects capable of sparking the imagination, evoking memories, and bringing beauty to everyday gestures. They are poetic instruments that reflect Ponti’s belief that even the domestic dimension can become a theatre of fantasy.’

The ‘Gio Ponti Objects’ collection includes an origami-like horse and two doves, masterfully recreated in metal and reflecting Ponti’s ability to shape entire worlds from simple materials. Also made of stainless steel is ‘La Mano’, a hand motif that Ponti used throughout his career in drawings and sculptures. The starting point of its design is a freehand drawing made by the architect, in response to which silversmith Lino Sabattini sculpted an object that recreated the playful six-fingered hand.

‘The hand embodies the mimicry of error, an impossible hand in honour of fantasy, while remaining the symbol of human measure and expression, of concrete intervention and creation,’ says Molteni.

Among the collection’s functional objects are ‘7 Tubi’ (seven tubes) and ‘Pompei’, two stainless steel designs that can be used as vases or candleholders, and the ‘Architettura’ tray, based on the hexagonal module that often served as the starting point for Ponti’s architectural blueprints. It signals his mission to bring architecture into all facets of daily life, and this domestic object calls to mind Milan’s Pirelli skyscraper, one of Ponti’s most memorable and impactful designs.

The collection also veers towards the theatrical with a series of wooden bottle sculptures, originally created as part of a scenography and reproduced in ash and robinia. Completing the set is ‘Bucchero’, an Etruscan-inspired object made using a rare clay-firing technique. ‘The vessel, with its shiny black material, handcrafted using an ancient Etruscan technique, connects the ancient to the modern, representing Ponti’s ability to reinvent the past with a contemporary spirit,’ adds Molteni.

The collection was assembled with the help of Salvatore Licitra, Gio Ponti’s grandson and the keeper of his creative legacy. ‘As you journey through 60 years of Gio Ponti’s creativity, it may happen that the seemingly chaotic, kaleidoscopic wealth of his creative universe suddenly reveals itself as a balanced and clear whole, where every element responds to a single vision,’ he says.

‘It is a vast landscape, which embraces architecture, interiors, façades, materials, decor, colours, fabrics, ceramics, metals, wood, glass. Within this harmonious tableau, [...] we’ll find objects that promote a new way of life, vibrant domestic sentinels, tools to be kept close at hand, ready to set the stage for the theatre of imagination, across space and time. These are objects that are both beautiful and impossible.’

See molteni.it for your nearest store or shop online in the USA at shop.molteni.it

A version of this article appears in the December 2025 Entertaining Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

A master of enchantment, Gio Ponti had a fascination with symbolic, figurative, and ornamental design elements, one of which was the hand. Although these motifs appeared in his work as early as the 1920s, they continued to resurface throughout his career, notably in his interiors and decorative arts of the 1960s.

'Ponti's hand represents the human ability to imagine, to go beyond the world of objects to enter those of theatre, poetry, and playfulness,' explains Salvatore Licitra, curator of the Gio Ponti Archives. 'They are a tribute to the craftsmanship of the artist's and ceramicist's ability to animate matter with his own hands.'

To mark the 60th anniversary of the ‘Dezza’ armchair – a piece Ponti designed in 1965 – Poltrona Frau is unveiling a limited-edition version featuring a never-before-seen hand illustration by the designer. The pattern, discovered in a privately owned, unpublished drawing purchased at auction, was selected by the brand after meticulous research. It features 26 stylised hands, each with its own name and identity, such as 'Gloved Hand', 'Starry Hand', 'Pierced Hand', and 'The Fortune Teller’s Hand'. Each armchair in the limited run of 60 is individually numbered with a metal tag on the back, and the chair is upholstered in Pelle Frau ColorSphere Less Impact leather. A select number will be available to purchase exclusively online in certain European markets from today (13 February) until 1 April 2025.

The Dezza armchair holds particular significance for Poltrona Frau, as it was the first piece to signal the brand’s new direction following its move to Tolentino in 1962, where it remains headquartered today. The relocation anchored the company in a region renowned for its artisanal expertise, setting the stage for its evolution into a global design powerhouse.

With its modernist, squared lines balanced by curved armrests and slender, tapered legs, the Dezza’s design conveys a sense of movement, and as a testament to its enduring appeal, it has remained in continuous production since its debut.

At the time of its launch in 1965, Gio Ponti was at a late but highly productive stage in his career, still actively working across architecture, design, and publishing. He had recently completed the clifftop Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento, a project defined by its striking blue-and-white ceramic tile scheme, reflecting his deep love for pattern and surface design. Inspired by the hotel’s airy, joyful interiors, Poltrona Frau has selected a blue and white colour palette for this new edition of the Dezza that pays homage to Ponti’s aesthetic vision.

Reflecting on today's launch, Nicola Coropulis, CEO of Poltrona Frau shares, 'With our re-editions, we always strive to deepen the cultural significance of the original design, offering something truly exclusive that not only enhances the materials and finishes but, above all, celebrates the creative process behind the products.'

poltronafrau.com

As Salone del Mobile 2024 and the wider Milan Design Week got underway this week in the design capital, one thing quickly became clear: the majority of the fashion contingency among the schedule was in a reflective mood.

While some brands looked to design masters past, others mined their archives: Bottega Veneta worked with the Le Corbusier Foundation to re-interpret its LC14 Tabouret Cabanon stool; Yves Saint Laurent collaborated with the Gio Ponti archive to create an exclusive porcelain collection; and Gucci presented archival re-editions in its now-signature Ancora red from the likes of Tobia Scarpa and Venini.

Elsewhere, Hermès and Armani placed their new furniture and design creations beside the sartorial objects that inspired them (with Giorgio Armani sharing personal photographs that span his career) and Loewe worked with its Craft Prize alumni to create 26 unique lamps that spotlighted the time-honed craft techniques that still exist around the world.

It’s a move that reflects a recent trend in their primary medium of fashion, where reminders of iconic codes are increasingly served up to highlight the importance of respecting the signatures that stand the test of time.

Here, in our comprehensive round-up, is the Wallpaper* edit of the best fashion moments at Milan Design Week 2024.

Fashion moments at Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week 2024

Armani Casa

Held once again in Palazzo Orsini on Via Borgonuovo (also known as Armani HQ), Armani Casa’s Salone installation took visitors on a journey of the places founder Giorgio Armani has been most inspired by during his illustrious career. His travels have taken him far and wide – all over Europe, as well as Japan, China, Saudi Arabia and Morocco – and over the years, homages to the craft and skill he has discovered in each have appeared in his ready-to-wear collections. For this installation, called ‘Echoes From The World’, he placed his exquisite couture creations and his own personal collection of souvenirs (from Samurai swords to kimonos) alongside new pieces of furniture such as the Venus console with a hand-painted lacquered glass top backed in gold-leaf to give a luminous shimmer in the room dedicated to China and the blue velvet bed in the room celebrating Morocco that took months to make (only seven centimetres of this fabric can be woven in a day and this bed took 12 metres of material). A highlight waiting at the end of the show was a room with supersized images from Armani’s private photo album in a few of the locations celebrated here. ‘For this edition of the Salone del Mobile, I imagined a “cinematic” journey to the countries that have always inspired me: places and cultures that spark highly personal reworkings,’ shared Armani, adding: ‘I like to present myself to the public in the most authentic and direct way possible.’

Hermès

Taking over the sprawling La Pelota space for the week, Hermès presented ‘Topography of Material’, an installation conceived ‘to create a dialogue between roots and movement, between materials and know-how’, shared the brand. Suspended below foot-level on a diagonal catwalk of sorts, guests were welcomed by 16 intersecting floors that brought together 16 different types of stone, ten types of earth, four types of wood and many variations of terracotta brick all sourced from either Italy or France arranged in intricate ways to celebrate the skill of timeless handcraft. It formed a powerful introduction to the presentation of objects itself as this year Hermès made a point to highlight its own enduring codes. Behind a 35m-long and 6.m-high suspended black wall lay objects from the house’s archive juxtaposed with recent masterpieces and objects making their debut. For example, the silver Timour choker necklace from 2002 sat beside the new Diapason D’Hermès chair designed by the Hermès Studio this year in homage to the piece of jewellery; the original Mangeoire pouch from 1949 (used to feed horses) stood beside the new Derby leather buckets, also launched this year; and the Drag travel bag from the 2010s was presented next to Jasper Morrison’s Equilibre chair for Hermès from 2020. As intended, it effectively presented the virtues in time-honed skills and luxurious designs that retain a forever relevance.

Valextra

Valextra worked with Bergamo-based Studio Temp (with whom it also collaborated for Casa Valextra) on its Valextra Vocabolario concept that transformed its John Pawson-designed Via Manzoni flagship into the Valextra Spa. The idea was to highlight the exceptional care that goes into each of Valextra’s leather goods, from the hands that craft them to the after-care that the brand offers its clients. Inside a huge, simulated sauna, guests were invited to sit and observe the brand’s artisans hand-painting its signature black lacquered Costa edging onto handbags in real time. In the pink-carpeted space around, the brand’s new Assoluto collection – a three-piece capsule crafted from Econyl – was unveiled as machines worked in real time to 3D-print the new Iside Onda handbag. Combining state-of-the-art handbag development and best-in-class customer service through a radical architectural lens, it beautifully captured the DNA of this Milanese brand.

Bottega Veneta

Bottega Veneta presented ‘On The Rocks’ at the Palazzo San Fedele, a special location for the house as it was the setting for creative director Matthieu Blazy’s first show and is its soon-to-be HQ. Partnering with Cassina and Fondation Le Corbusier, the brand honed in on the iconic LC14 Tabouret Cabanon stool that it described as ’a timeless icon of Le Corbusier that embodies the excellence of the Cassina carpentry workshop’. First conceived by the designer for his Côte d'Azur cabin, it was inspired by a washed-up whisky box he found on the shores beneath the residence, hence the title of the installation, which saw several iterations piled high, one on top of the other, reminiscent of a jagged coastline. This isn’t the first time Blazy has affiliated himself with the object; at his recent A/W 2024 womenswear fashion show set, guests sat on bare wooden versions. For Salone, they came in the same rendering but also covered in the brand’s famous intrecciatio leather to create 160 limited editions.

Loewe

Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson primarily worked with alumni from the brand’s prestigious Craft Prize on his first-ever lighting installation at Salone del Mobile. Staged at Palazzo Citterio in the heart of the Brera Design District, the presentation featured one-of-a-kind lighting designs from 24 artists who the brand has either worked with or supported in the past. Remarkably, it was the first time that any of the featured makers had worked with light, which accounted for the originality on display. From Enrico David’s curved Onyx table lamp that features the face of a woman on closer inspection and Dahye Jeong’s spherical structure using an ancient weaving technique using horsehair, to Young Song Lee’s hollowed-out calabash fruits covered in twisted mulberry-tree paper and Dame Magdalene Odundo’s cinched leather hanging lamps (above), each captured the celebratory spirit of Loewe in the world of craft and design that promotes and helps preserve the most exquisite techniques from all over the world. While each of the 24 pieces was for sale at the start of the week, by 5pm on the second day the majority were – predictably – all snapped up.

Gucci

Gucci’s creative director Sabato de Sarno’s ‘Ancora’ campaign continues to thrive in Milano as the brand unveiled Gucci Design Ancora in its newly reopened flagship on Via Montenapoleone. Entering through a carpeted staircase surrounded by lacquered walls in the dark red ‘Ancora Rosso’ hue that is a signature of the De Sarno era at Gucci, visitors were presented with an antidote in acid green when they reached the top. Inside this starkly saturated mini maze, architected by Guillermo Santomà, were five objects De Sarno had chosen from several Italian masters over the years that had been re-issued in the Ancora-red hue for the occasion. The Le Mura sofa by Mario Bellini for Tacchini from 1972; the Clessidra rug from an iconic design of Piero Portaluppi made by CC-Tapis; the Storet tallboy by Nanda Vigo for Acerbis in 1994; the Opachi vase by Tobia Scarpa for Venini in 1960; and the Parola lamp by Gae Aulenti and Piero Castiglioni for FontanaArte in 1980 each stood in their own space to be admired from all angles. ‘Through Design Ancora, Gucci doesn’t simply celebrate old icons, it creates new ones,’ said Michela Pelizzari, founder of P:S Agency, which co-curated the project. ’The aura emanating from the brand spotlights five pieces by Italian masters that are perfect from a design standpoint but less known to the general public.’

Thom Browne

For his Salone del Mobile debut, Thom Browne took over the Palazzina Appiani to unveil his collaboration with the 160-year-old home textiles expert Frette with his performance, entitled Time To Sleep. True to his reputation for subverting traditional settings and concepts into unexpected scenarios, Browne placed six identical beds under the frescoes in the Hall of Honour and had models undress themselves before getting into bed. In the models’ getting dressed, rather than undressed, to sleep, Browne intended to ‘challenge the audience to question the role of dress in public life’, highlighting that the act of sleeping is just as important as the hours we are awake. ‘I think it's so much more interesting, and it elevates the product launch, when you create an installation that transcends the specific world that it’s in,’ Browne told Wallpaper* during rehearsals for the performance. The collection, which is available immediately, comprises sheets, blankets, terry-towel and cashmere robes, bath towels, and a quilted bath mat in crisp white cotton-sateen. ‘The reason I wanted to work with Frette is because they’re the best at what they do,’ added Browne.

Saint Laurent

The Paris-based house turned the clock back to 1953 and the private collection of Anala and Armando Planchart who commissioned the legendary architect Gio Ponti to mastermind their hilltop Venezuelan villa overlooking Caracas. On finishing the project, Ponti commissioned artisans from his native Italy to help furnish the space and turned to Ginori 1735 to create a collection of porcelain plates featuring motifs from around the villa and the couple’s initials. It is these plates that creative director Anthony Vaccarello curated and had reissued by the ceramic experts for Saint Laurent’s special installation in the cloisters of the Chiostri di San Simpliciano. Displayed in oscillating tubes on a raised platform that mirrored the height in which they originally lived in Villa Planchart Segnaposto, the presentation marked a coming together of multiple design icons.

Prada

Once again collaborating with FormaFantasma (above), Prada staged its Prada Frames seminar discussions on the theme of Being Home. Throughout the week, luminaries in different fields came together – including Paola Antonelli, Brigitte Baptiste, Kate Crawford, Jack Halberstam and David Van Severen – to cover myriad topics that were contextualised by Alice Rawsthorn. Each of the 17 sessions took their leave from different rooms around the home: for the bedroom, Gulsum Baydar and Philippe Rahm discussed the bedrooms role as a comfort zone; for the living room, Jayden Ali and Jack Halberstam were in conversation with Andrés Jaque exploring the rituals of diaspora communities in architectural spaces; and in the library, Isabella Rossellini and Mary Kuhn examined the relationship between humans and nature in the home, past and present. Staged each year to invite people out of their everyday lives and explore new and alternative analysis of familiar situations, it continues to be a highlight. Read more about Prada Frames.

Issey Miyake

60,000 bamboo skewers were used to create the one-of-a-kind carpet collaboration between Issey Miyake and the Dutch collective We Make Carpets. Famous for transforming everyday objects into artistic works of beauty, the artisans channelled Issey Miyake’s own skill at finding the sweet spot of robust-delicacy with the piece that was created by inserting the skewers one by one by hand into a thick piece of foam. The resulting patterns emerged organically as their dipped ends started to create surface patterns. Issey Miyake praised the group’s tenacity in making something meaningful without the need for ‘fancy gadgets and advanced technologies’, praising their labour-intensive and synchronised teamwork in bringing the piece to life. Transported flat to Milan city centre from where it was crafted in the Netherlands, in a nod to the national emblem it was presented resting on wooden beams crafted from tulip trees at the Via Bagutta flagship.

Versace

‘If These Walls Could Talk’ is an apt name for Versace’s Salone del Mobile presentation staged in its original atelier, the Palazzo Versace on Via Gesu. As many a fashion aficionado will know, it is at this residence that many of the fashion house’s famous catwalk shows have taken place over the years (including that 1991 show that birthed ‘the supermodel’) and where many of its globally recognised logos and icons were first designed, including the Medusa, Barocco and Greca emblems. They were omnipresent through this presentation that guided visitors from room to room, with even more opulence around each corner – an experience heightened by an audio experience created in collaboration with Radio Raheem for each space. They featured pieces new and reworked including The Medusa ’95 Conversational Sofa, the La Greca Bed and the Lady Desk, each a conversation starter in the space they stood.

Loro Piana 

Paying tribute to the late Milanese designer and architect Cini Boeri, Loro Piana showcased the most iconic pieces from her archive and presented them in its famously luxurious interiors fabrics. The collaboration with the official archive of Boeri, marks not only what would have been the year of Boeri’s 100th birthday, but the year Loro Piana also celebrates its centenary. Honouring Boeri’s insistence that furniture should be engaged with at all times, visitors to the presentation were encouraged to touch and sit on the pieces as they moved through the space. ’The thinking of Cini Boeri is extraordinarily contemporary,’ shared Francesco Pergamo, Director of Loro Piana Interiors. ’Just as extraordinarily contemporary remain the pieces we have chosen to exhibit together with Arflex and Archivio Cini Boeri, and to dress with our fabrics.’ Featured in the presentation are the famous modular Strips system, that won the prestigious Compasso d’Oro in 1979, the corresponding bed, the Bobo and Boborelax armchairs and the Botolo Chairs that have been covered in the brand’s ‘cashfur’ and made in a limited edition of 100. ’The dual centenary of Cini’s birth and the founding of Loro Piana has offered us the opportunity to contribute to the appreciation of the architect's figure,’ added Pergamo, who revealed plans to work with the archive on additional projects over the next three years.

Fendi Casa

Welcome to the world of Fendi Casa where the family keeps growing. This year, the Via Manzoni space was masterminded by Silvia Venturini Fendi and realised by Controvento creative collective. Together, they kept the house’s ‘double F’ logo of the house front and center, creating intimate spaces that invite people to cosy up, much like the emblem. The perfect example lies in the new Fendi F-Affair sofa by Controvento that is an interlocking platform of seats and suspended tables presented with a champagne bucket and glasses. It was joined by other collaborations in the sumptuous sofa department, the F-Stripes by Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba and the Sohoft by Toan Nguyen. Existing families grew their brood, too: Thierry Lemaire’s Parsifal sofa was joined by the Mrs Parsifal armchair; Stefano Gallizioli’s Adrianand’s Audrey chair was complemented with square-shaped Audrette chairs; and Cristina Celestino's Ottavia chair was delivered of a sister, the Lazy Ottavia armchair.

Zegna

Zegna staged something of a takeover of Milan as it released its new Rizzoli tome, Born In Oasi Zegna. Named after the 100km of forested land north of Milan in the Biella Alps where its founder Ermenegildo Zegna initiated a reforestation programme in 1910, the book marked a moment for the brand to celebrate both its values and association with the city of Milan. In celebration, mini Zegna-branded newsstands (‘edicolas’) that are famously found on most corners were giving out limited-edition tote bags, while over in the piazza in front of the landmark Duomo, tulips transported in from the area were being planted in the square’s new flower beds. ’The project aims to convey the value and urgency of respect for the Earth and nature, as well as the importance that urban green spaces can bring people closer to natural ecosystems and the protection of biodiversity and social responsibility,’ shared the brand, ’concepts that are fundamental to Oasi Zegna.’

Dolce & Gabbana

Fresh from setting the city alight with its extravagant Milanese exhibition, ’From the Heart to the Hands’, Dolce & Gabbana staged an intimate reveal of its new interiors offering, The Dreaming Collection. Here, it was all about sitting comfortably, as the Moss Curved Sofa, which sits on a polished metal base in black nickel, and the DG Casa Moon Island armchair (above, which the brand said was ‘reminiscent of a warm embrace’) were joined by the Moon Island Sofa – designed to steal the spotlight in any room it’s in, much like everything this brand turns its heart and hand to.

Lanvin

Parisian house Lanvin looked towards its heritage for its installation at Milan Design Week; specifically, Lanvin Decoration, a furniture and decoration line which was first introduced by founder and couturier Jeanne Lanvin in 1920. Lanvin united with Rooms Studio – founded by two Georgian designers Nata Janberidze and Keti Toloraia in 2007 – for the project, which saw the pair curate a number of their pieces, including a series of sculptural chairs and benches, which were displayed at Lanvin’s Milan outpost.

A Gio Ponti revival, triggered partly by a 2022 Taschen publication that reappraises the Italian maestro’s massive design and architectural legacy, makes the discovery of Villa Ponti Bellavista particularly exciting.

Villa Ponti Bellavista: dramatic views and a trip back in time

The 500 sq m villa on Lake Como, recently renovated and available for rent, was Ponti collaboration, originally conceived as a summer retreat for Milanese friends of the architect, the Fossati family, in the mid-1960s when Ponti was at the peak of his fame. Cesare Casati and Enzo Hybsh, who worked as a designer and editor at the magazine Domus, which Ponti founded and directed until his death in the late 1970s, undoubtedly played key roles in the conception and construction of the villa. Their signed sketch and floor plan are framed at the villa entrance.

Lake Como, as a destination, has long attracted grand designs – mythical villas with epic views overlooking expanses of blue-green glacial water framed by cypress, chestnut, and conifer. Since the time of the Roman Empire, when the first outsiders came and were captivated by the mild micro-climate, the deep glacial waters holding the sun’s heat well into autumn, and the unique light with the unreal quality of mother-of-pearl, the powerful and wealthy have sought to leave their mark on the landscape.

Villa Ponti Bellavista is only 7km from Bellagio, yet high enough to feel like a mountain aerie rather than part of the touristic theatre of the legendary lakeside town. At night, 600m up, it seems to hover on the edge of the cliff face. Its fourth wall is an illuminated arc of 11 windows that look over the Grigne mountains and the distant Alps, curved like an observation deck of a ship.

Ocean liners of the last century were symbols of modernity and technological progress – expressions of optimism and a world on the move. They served as backdrops for cutting-edge design and the evolving aesthetics of the day, inspiring architects from Le Corbusier to Gio Ponti. Here, chimneys are represented as ship-like funnels, with nautical lanterns on external walls and tiered balconies that jut into space like the decks of a cruise liner connected by a helix staircase.

In the last years of his life, Ponti was, more than ever, in search of transparency and lightness in design and interiors. This villa conjures it, plays with it, and offers a sense of space and sky so exhilarating and generous it feels like a privilege that no modern-day architect could afford. The sense of largesse is like a scent of nostalgia in the time-capsule villa.

There are six bedrooms, with three that open onto terraces offering lofty lake views. The master bedroom has the oversized headboard that was a Ponti signature. His dashboard-style headboard, composed of shelves and control buttons for lighting and radio, is taken for granted as a hotel fixture today, but at the 1951 Milan Triennial, it was cutting-edge and revolutionary.

The sitting room has a playful sunken lounge area around a belly fireplace and original orange and pink sofas, contributing to the integrity of the 1960s aesthetic. From the swimming pool carved out of a bocce court and planted up with hundreds of blue hydrangeas to a sauna and hot tub with Perspex sun loungers on the lip of the cliff, it’s a stage set that vibrates to an authentic James Bond/Mad Men beat.

There is rhythmic harmony in the detail – from the hand-crafted curvature of doors to the signature Ponti ceramic tiles of the bathrooms, down to the cutlery drawers and door handles which evoke Ponti’s love of craft, layered texture, space and light.

villapontibellavista.com

Milan's Settantaventidue gallery has gathered an impressive collection of Christmas cards, created between the 1940s and 1970s by some of the most celebrated art directors and graphic designers of the past century (on view until 6 January 2024). The lineup sounds like a who's who of design, from Bob Noorda to Ettore Sottsass, Bruno Munari, A G Fronzoni and Vittorio Gregotti among many more.

Christmas cards by iconic designers

Over 100 greeting cards on view have been selected by  Studio Bruno Tonini (a publishing house specialising in fine art publications), with the help of art director Luca Pitoni. 

These are not your run of the mill Christmas cards, they range from the colourful and humorous to the esoteric, hand-drawn or featuring type and photography, each of them an incredible glimpse into its creator's approach to design and holiday greetings. 

Some cards are self-celebrating, like Gio Ponti's rendition of his Pirelli skyscraper, which was under construction in 1958 and reproduced in black and white under construction on a multi-folded card. Some played with traditional Christmas motifs, from Albe Steiner's mistletoe to Remo Muratore's Christmas bauble and Vittorio Gregotti's pile of wrapped presents. But there is also A G Fronzoni's minimalist Santa, Studio Boggeri's dotted Christmas tree and several playful objects and compositions, from Studio Stile's 'giochino' (little toy) to once again Boggeri's compositions of transparent coloured paper to create different festive effects. 

These designers 'all engaged in what used to be a mandatory exercise of style: confronting the stereotypes of seasonal greetings,' reads a note accompanying the exhibition. 'The result is a precious collection of delicate visual surprises in which each designer shows his or her style with little or no compromise: Instagram before Instagram even existed, in a hardware version.'

The Graphic Design of Christmas Greetings is on view until 6 January 2024

Settantaventidue
Via Lodovico il Moro 1
Milan

settantaventidue.net

To walk into Mayfair restaurant Il Gattopardo is to step back in time to 1950’s Italy when the country was at a height of opulent design. Located on Mayfair’s Albemarle Street, Il Gattopardo represents a classic Italian take on its Golden age with an interior inspired by Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino’s apartment in Turin.

Mayfair's Il Gattopardo celebrates Italian design

The restaurant the exterior is a perfect execution of the fashionable ‘quiet luxury’ lifestyle, forming an effortlessly chic entrance and outdoor seating, with dark glossy wood and gold detailing. 

Upon entrance you feel part of an old Hollywood set design, with timeless décor and rich textures. Il Gattopardo meaning ‘The Leopard’ in Italian, provides subtle hints throughout the interior via carefully painted blue leopard motifs peering around each wall.

Although the interior seemingly emulates luxury, Parisian design duo Dion & Arles intertwined the seduction and frivolity of bygone Italian summers, blending classical design references with mid-century modernism.

Overhead, hanging vines with a vineyard colour palette embrace the geometric wall design, with the mirrored ceilings elongating the area as if on a Mediterranean veranda. The angled skylights allow for a slice of light in this cosy setting, perfect for extended lunches that drift into the late afternoon.

The heart of the restaurant reflects typical Italian family values shown by the soft furnishing and grouped tables, garnished with individual lamps casting a centrepiece of warm lighting. Each table topped with sepia drawings inspired by artist Piero Fornasetti, expands the intimate attention to detail.

Nonetheless, the sophisticated Italian stone topped Crudo bar occupying a corner, is the pinnacle of 1950s exuberance, with dark wood fittings mimicking the dashboard of a vintage Fiat coupé, and frosted glass dividers allow for an intimate setting.

For a more private dining experience head down the staircase, lit up by a handmade stained-glass window reflecting the geometric shapes consistent throughout the restaurant interior. This  private dining room blends heritage and modernity, while intertwining their iconic leopard motifs through the carpet, inspired by the late antique dealer and exotic interiors muse, Madeleine Castaing.

To end your evening, a hidden terrace offers golden hour dining, in a hazy amber setting. A diamond, lattice trellis reimagines a classic Italian pergola perfect to sit back and relax with an Aperol spritz.

Il Gattopardo
27 Albemarle St
London W1S 4HZ

gattopardo.restaurant

Fuorisalone 2023 saw the 50th anniversary celebration of the Cassina I Maestri collection with an exhibition curated by the brand’s creative director Patricia Urquiola in collaboration with Federica Sala. Industrial production and culture have often gone hand in hand for Italian furniture brands, and Cassina took this approach to the next level with a panoramic view that highlighted the designs’ genesis as well as the cultural implications behind their conception. 

Cassina I Maestri: past and future

Cassina is deeply rooted in creative and technical innovation, with Urquiola leadinga series of collaborations that range from some of the most distinguished names in design today to emerging designers such as Linde Freya Tangelder of Belgian studio Destroyers Builders. The same enthusiasm can be seen in the brand’s celebration of past design masters, through respectful collaborations with their respective foundations that result in collections that preserve and uplift iconic pieces. ‘

If the company is the filter through which we observe history, its history is constellated by 14 maestri,’ say the curators. Since the 1970s, Cassina has been reissuing pieces by the greatest architects of the 20th century, including Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, Ico Parisi and Gio Ponti.

Set within the cavernous Palazzo Broggi in central Milan, ‘Echoes, 50 years of I Maestri’ was ‘a scenographic journey into the heart of Cassina’s archive to discover its treasures’. On display were both prototypes and original models never before shown outside the archives, as well as dismantled pieces that showcased their ingenious structures. 

‘Cassina has implemented a unique method to authentically reissue the icons of the great masters of the modern movement,’ says Luca Fuso, Cassina’s CEO. ‘Thanks to painstaking research, experimentation and consolidated relations with the heirs and foundations, we have been able to develop incredible pieces that were never industrially produced before, therefore making them known to the public for the very first time. One of my favourite pieces is the ‘Radio in Cristallo’ by Franco Albini, created by removing all of the unnecessary materials from an old traditional radio received as a wedding present,’ continues Fuso. ‘It was never put into production, probably because it was so ahead of its time, just like many other masterpieces in the collection.’

The latest chapter of I Maestri made its debut in Milan and will be officially unveiled in 2024: a collection of lamps by Ray and Charles Eames, it marks Cassina’s official lighting debut (with further pieces by Tobia Scarpa and Tangelder, as well as Philippe Starck and Paolo Ulian). ‘The collection is constantly evolving with new names, and using modern production processes and materials, always with great respect for the original project,’ says Fuso. This approach includes thorough research, focusing on circular materials and production methods that mirror the masters’ innovative approaches to furniture production.  

Echoes, edited by Ivan Mietton, will be published by Rizzoli in autumn 2023, cassina.com

Welcome to the July issue, our global round-up of the best in design. Our Design Directory features the best new seating, tables, beds, lighting, outdoor furniture, rugs and more. We showcase the most exciting kitchen launches, and visit Florentine brand Officine Gullo, whose products are based on craftsmanship traditions and whose unique home in the city is set within a Renaissance chapel, with an impressive bespoke kitchen in place of the altar. 

Among this year’s Salone del Mobile highlights was Cassina’s ‘Echoes’ exhibition, curated by Patricia Urquiola and Federica Sala. Celebrating 50 years of the brand’s reissues of works by design greats, including Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Franca Helg and Franco Albini, the show also previewed a new collaboration with the Eames Foundation, which will be officially unveiled in 2024.

We take a tour of Achille Salvagni’s renovated NYC townhouse, a seven-storey building transformed into a luxurious single-family home. Wallpaper’s US director, Michael Reynolds, who art-directed our shoot, says of Salvagni: ‘His interiors have sophisticated Italian notes, channelling Gio Ponti, Bertolucci and Visconti. His work has tremendous quality to it, and he knows how to play with understated decadence. He is of another era, a class act. He marches to his own drum, not of trend, but with a unique authentic eye.’ 

Our Space shoot takes inspiration from the curve, as seen in works created by some of the great masters of design – Ettore Sottsass, Mario Botta, Tobia and Afra Scarpa, Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Mario Bellini and Aldo Rossi. Some are still in production, some reissued, some are museum pieces, but all are enjoying the limelight in a set inspired by Gae Aulenti’s apartment in the Altana Palazzo Pucci in Florence. Our pre-fall fashion edit, meanwhile, captures an after-dark 1980s mood – all glitz, glamour and sleek, powerful silhouettes. It was photographed in the Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s new west London outpost Ladbroke Hall, a 1903 Grade II-listed building restored in collaboration with architect David Adjaye. 

This month, we also celebrate Loewe Foundation Craft Prize finalist Tanya Aguiñiga, whose art and activism weave together stories of transnational identity and the US-Mexico border, visit Fendi’s Roman HQ as it sets the scene for a new show celebrating the monumental work of Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, and discuss the reinterpretation of Cartier’s elegantly elongated Baignoire watch. And to finish in style, we hop on a boat to Filicudi to check out Barber Osgerby’s exhibition at Studio Casoli, an art gallery on the Aeolian island (a regular holiday spot for Edward Barber), where the British designers present an overview of how their industrial work regularly merges with craft.

This is a special month – it heralds the return of our original strapline, *the stuff that surrounds you. Interviewed for our 25th-anniversary issue in 2021, founder Tyler Brûlé described launching Wallpaper* as ‘a curious, global, slightly decadent and occasionally naughty periodical with a passion for architecture, industrial design, entertaining, fashion, the Nordic world and plenty of travel’. And I love this about Wallpaper*, the ability to find joy, inspiration and humour in the designed world around us, so it felt appropriate to reclaim our original strapline with the positively democratic use of the word ‘stuff’ for the things that we choose to surround ourselves with. Design continues to enrich and inspire, and this issue I hope is testament to that. Enjoy!  

Sarah Douglas
Editor-in-Chief

The July 2023 issue of Wallpaper* is available in print from 8 June, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Discover the Wallpaper* guide to Salone del Mobile 2023 and Milan Design Week

Designed by Gio Ponti in 1965, the ‘Dezza’ armchair, named after the Milanese street where the architect’s home-studio was located, is characterised by a soft, sleek silhouette with a tapered triangular leg. The chair is available in three versions: ‘Dezza 12’, with a low backrest and thin armrests allowing for multiple elements to be combined, ‘Dezza 48’, equipped with a goose-down-filled backrest, and ‘Dezza 24’, a two-seater sofa option. 

The chair is a fitting example of Ponti's architectural mind when conceiving furniture design: distinctive elements of the ‘Dezza’ chair design include tapered legs with triangular cross sections, and the essential construction - the design, in fact, is simply made of four pieces, including two sides, a backrest, and the seat.

Gio Ponti's ‘Dezza’ with Redevance upholstery

For Milan Design Week 2023, Poltrona Frau celebrates Ponti's design with the launch of a brand new edition, upholstered in the never-seen-before ‘Redevance’ fabric, which has been created from a graphic pattern originally designed by Ponti. The print has been brought back to life in careful collaboration with the Gio Ponti Archives and Manifattura Jsa, a textile company founded in 1949 by Luigi Grampa and well known for its collaborations with Ponti.

‘Redevance’ is a printed woollen silk featuring a signature Ponti shades of blue and grey in a pattern of simple geometric elements, broken down and replicated in sequence.

The new edition of Ponti's chair is part of Poltrona Frau's ‘Pleasure Collection’, featuring designs by the company's long-term collaborators as well as accessories and reissues.

Poltrona Frau's Pleasure collection is on view at the showroom, Via Alessandro Manzoni, 30, Milan

poltronafrau.com

See the May 2023 issue of Wallpaper*, on sale 13 April, for more Salone del Mobile previews. Wallpaper* is available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

In partnership with Molteni&C

For its inaugural outdoor collection, Molteni&C’s creative director Vincent Van Duysen presents furniture that is both visually expressive and highly functional, bringing the brand’s signature qualities of style and craftsmanship to exterior environments. Curating original designs by Foster + Partners and Ron Gilad, and rediscovering archive pieces from Gio Ponti and Luca Meda, Van Duysen delved into the rich tradition of Italian design for inspiration, the collection defined by a sense of savoir-faire and a respect for heritage.  

‘I pursued the idea of softness and wellbeing, of organic playfulness in an architectural vision of the furniture,’ explains Van Duysen. ‘I was inspired by modernism to recall the idea of permeability and transparency between indoor and outdoor spaces. That intimate connection with light and nature.’ 

Molteni&C Outdoor Collection

Molteni&C’s outdoor range encompasses several concepts that exist in a singular, organic vision. The Landmark Collection features a reissue of famed designer Luca Meda’s classic ‘Palinfrasca’ sofa. Vincent Van Duysen’s Timeout Collection comprises outdoor essentials that reference the smooth forms of modernist architecture, while the Heritage Collection features a revival of two of Gio Ponti’s most beloved armchairs. 

Tying the collections together are new rugs by Van Duysen, Nicola Gallizia and Marta Ferri, defined by subtle patterns, rich fabrics and warm tones. 

And finally, there are two exceptional standalone pieces from Foster + Partners and Ron Gilad, while Marta Ferri also edited a sophisticated original outdoor textile collection.

The narrative is a conversation between materials. The Landmark Collection’s sumptuous use of solid teak complements the strong metal profiles of the Timeout Collection. 

Meanwhile, the cement finish of Foster + Partners’ parabolic-shaped ‘Arc’ robustly contrasts the perforated iron top and lava-stone base of Ron Gilad’s ‘Panna Cotta’ table. Woven motifs wend their way throughout the range; the Timeout Collection’s interlaced polypropylene rope details and the ‘Palinfrasca’ sofa’s banded woven backrest, made of teak or EVA polyurethane, are inspired by traditional basket making.

An outdoor kitchen

The collection is completed by an outdoor kitchen, also designed by Van Duysen. ‘Conviviality and sophistication are the keywords I wanted to attribute to this outdoor kitchen,’ says the creative director. ‘[It’s] furniture with a simple yet structured feel, where functionality and sophistication coexist to create modern design.’ The Helios outdoor kitchen combines Italian craftsmanship with innovative, outdoor technology and exterior-friendly finishes. Its clean, rigorous lines and discreetly monolithic impact allow it to be combined with both the materials and finishes of the Landmark and Timeout Collections. 

A vast array of textures – from a material that resembles natural stone to ceramic and steel – allow for extensive customisation, making it suitable for different styles and environments. Colours coordinate with the outdoor ranges’ strong palette of materials. Organic tones such as rust, desert yellow, earth brown, olive green, and anthracite mean pieces from disparate collections live easily together. 

Natural materials and timeless appeal

With Molteni&C maintaining a steadfast commitment to sustainability, the furniture in the collection is predominantly mono-material and sourced from certified supply chains. Parts are replaceable and upholstery is recyclable. The vitreous inserts of the Etna lava stone, used for the oven-baked enamelling of the surfaces, come from the crushing of recycled glass from TV and PC monitors. 

‘The technology is cutting-edge but hidden, the materials are natural and timeless,’ says Van Duysen. ‘Characteristics that are intrinsic to the brand identity: the careful craftsmanship of the production, the sophistication of the details, and the beauty of the individual objects that encapsulates the lessons of the great architects and designers it has interpreted. The new outdoor proposal shows a graphic presence and a sense of timelessness inherent in the Molteni&C brand DNA.’

Molteni&C’s inaugural outdoor collection is now available to view at its immersive London showroom on Brompton Road. Visitors can experience the furniture pieces and see how technology and design, tradition and non-conformity, quality and good design work together to create the elements of truly sophisticated style. 

Molteni&C London flagship store, 245-249 Brompton Rd, London SW3 2EP
Tel: +44.20 7631 2345, email: info@moltenidada.co.uk

molteni.it

Molteni & C makes its outdoor furniture debut this spring with two complementary collections celebrating our connection to nature and a refined approach to the home. Giulia Molteni, Molteni Group’s chief marketing officer, sees this as a natural progression for the brand. ‘Nature is an integral part of our life,’ she says. ‘It’s a connection that aims at rediscovering seasons, colours and the pleasure of the outdoors.’

Molteni outdoor furniture by Vincent Van Duysen: heritage meets contemporary aesthetic

Overseen by Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen, the collections merge sophisticated contemporary silhouettes with noteworthy older designs, touching upon the design codes that have defined Molteni & C throughout its almost 90-year history. In his six years as creative director of Molteni & C, Van Duysen has combined his minimalist rigour with the company’s Mediterranean roots, creating products and interiors that reflect what he calls ‘a broader cultural aura’.

This concept was taken to the next level in late 2022, when Molteni & C unveiled a new pavilion at its Giussano HQ in Lombardy, designed by Van Duysen. Framing a new showroom and restaurant for the company, the pavilion is punctuated by two cloistered gardens cultivated by Italian landscape architect Marco Bay, mixing plants with different textures and heights to express the idea of nature evolving over time. This space provides the perfect backdrop for the launch of Molteni & C’s outdoor furniture, which feels perfectly at home within Van Duysen’s rigorous architecture.

‘It was important for me to create collections that are really Molteni products, where I could really feel not only the heritage but also the core aesthetic we have developed in those six years,’ says Van Duysen.

The new offering encompasses two collections: Landmark, featuring sinuous seating based on an unrealised 1994 design by Luca Meda (who served as creative director for the company from 1968 until his death in 1998), and Timeout, an aluminium furniture range that expresses Van Duysen’s affinity with modernism. The outdoor catalogue also pays tribute to design masters, past and present, who have contributed to Molteni’s history, including Gio Ponti, Ron Gilad and Foster + Partners, whose ‘Arc’ table from 2010 has been reissued in a new outdoor edition as part of the launch.

A contemporary take on Meda’s design, the Landmark collection has a softer edge, characterised by a fluid frame and woven teak construction (also available in olive green EVA polyurethane) that encases the textile upholstery. Molteni’s carpentry savoir-faire comes to life in this modular seating system that adapts to different approaches to outdoor living.

Contrasting in style and proportions, the Timeout collection is a modernist-inspired series that includes a two-seater sofa, armchair, dining chairs and table, a sunbed, stool, bench and low table. Van Duysen was inspired by fer forgé (wrought iron) traditions to create an elegant language through slim profiles. ‘I am modernist in heart and soul, so this collection is more architecturally oriented, rigorous and linear,’ he says. His usual rigour is expressed through a bent aluminium band, coated with burnished paint that was chosen for the colour’s connection to the natural world. Wooden tops, woven elements and upholstery lend a touch of softness to the collection.

The launch is completed by two Gio Ponti pieces that bring the Italian architect’s distinctive silhouettes to the new outdoor dimension. The classic ‘D.154.2’ armchair, borrowed from the indoor catalogue, becomes a sophisticated addition to an open-air space. Alongside, the company has reissued the ‘D.150.5’, a sun lounger originally designed by Ponti for the Andrea Doria cruise ship in 1952 – a testament to Molteni’s ability to mix design history with modernity.

While the collections are independently conceived, Van Duysen stresses that they are intended to be combined, thanks to the rich series of textiles. Designed by long-term collaborator Marta Ferri, these match Van Duysen’s desire to connect the pieces with nature, through a series of woven textures, as well as geometric and organic patterns with a subdued, warm palette.

‘The outdoors has become extremely important,’ says Van Duysen, whose vision for Molteni & C encompasses every area of living. ‘To create this collection, I searched for an idea of softness and wellbeing, of organic playfulness with an architectural vision. I was inspired by modernism to recall that idea of permeability and transparency between internal and external spaces, and that intimate connection with light and nature.’  

molteni.it

A version of this article appears in the April 2023 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Set on a cliff on the Amalfi Coast, Borgo Santandrea reopens after a four-year restoration of the 1960s property, led by architect Rino Gambardella. The hotel combines classic Mediterranean style with a newly infused midcentury approach, featuring works by local artisans and furniture by Gio Ponti produced by Molteni&C that complements the hotel’s white and blue colour scheme.

For the project, Gambardella enlisted a local team that includes ceramicists, artisans working in wood and metal, as well as tile masters Cotto Vietri, who created a motif throughout the building inspired by a contemporary interpretation of decorations found in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Landscape designers Philip Adiutori and Gaetano Amato created a series of terraced gardens using local flora including olive, lemon and pomegranate trees, winter jasmine, and myrtle.

Throughout the hotel, arched passageways frame the sea view, with the serene atmosphere enhanced by the discreet colour palette and combination of ancient references and modern architecture. 

Gio Ponti’s furniture looks perfectly at ease in the space (his Parco dei Principi hotel in nearby Sorrento remains a legendary Amalfi Coast feature), with the relaxed forms of his ‘D.153.1’ and ‘D.156.3’ armchairs adorning the hotel’s lounge areas, while the more compact ‘D.151.4’ chairs, alongside the Italian architect’s coffee tables, complement the rooms’ living spaces overlooking the sea. 

Borgo Santandrea’s co-owner Maurizio Orlacchio stresses that the renovation of the hotel has been focused on making it feel like a home, with the strong collaboration with the local artisanal community a key part of the project. He says: ‘It has been a beautiful challenge over the past four years to restore the property and we feel proud to have brought so many talented artisans and iconic Italian brands together to create a one-of-a-kind hotel that is truly Made in Italy.’ 

INFORMATION

borgosantandrea.it

French architect and interior designer Charles Zana is launching his first collection of furniture and lighting with the exhibition ‘Ithaque’ in Paris (24 October 2021).

Zana draws on his extensive three decades of interior design experience for the collection, which encompasses around 60 new and updated pieces, including armchairs, sofas, stools, chandeliers, floor and table lamps, coffee tables and desks. The exhibition is a tantalising taster to the launch of Charles Zana Mobilier in January 2022, marking the official launch of the new standalone brand.

Zana has worked with French craftspeople for these pieces that take inspiration from the design codes of the 1930s, nodding to everything from Jean-Michael Frank’s materials to Pierre Chareau’s forms and Gio Ponti’s curves. In the new furniture, Zana is guided by the principle of simplicity, eschewing unnecessary embellishments and instead drawing the sculptural curve of a sofa or the graphic forms of a lamp in clean strokes.

Charles Zana Mobilier: a taste of what’s to come

‘As a trained architect and an art lover, I am guided by three fundamental principles: proportion, elegance, and comfort,’ says Zana. ‘With this new collection I seek to achieve the same balance between purity of forms, simplicity of volumes, and functionality, as I embark on a new quest to create timeless design.’

In the collection, a solid oak sofa complete with sensual fabric joins a bronze chandelier and a wall lamp of silver travertine and brass, which recalls Zana’s ‘Calanque’ table in its hypnotic fluidity. A glass lantern nods to Venetian traditions, while a large desk cuts a sleek and simple silhouette.

The pieces have been transported to an 18th century townhouse on the rue de l’Université in Paris, in a mingling of historical and contemporary design; a fitting background for the timeless aesthetic of the pieces. French-Israeli artist Nathanaëlle Herbelin’s paintings also feature in the space, her domestic scenes in muted hues an elegant foil for the understated furniture.

INFORMATION

‘Ithaque’ runs from 19 – 24 October 2021

zana.fr

ADDRESS

72 rue de l’Université
75007 Paris

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Genius Loci launches the first in a series of immersive exhibitions with a tribute to Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti. The sensory experience, which is being held at the Ponti-designed Paris villa, L’Ange Volant, from October 16 – 24 2021, showcases the responses of artists, architects and designers to the building.

L’Ange Volant by Gio Ponti

The neo-Palladian villa, located in Garches on the outskirts of Paris, and built in 1927, was Ponti’s sole architectural project in France. Its romantic name, L’Ange Volant (the flying angel) was inspired by a wedding held barely a year after its completion. It celebrates the union between the villa’s commissioner, Tony Bouilhet, and Carla Borletti, Gio Ponti’s niece, who met her future husband on the building site while visiting her uncle from Italy.

This romantic spirit has inspired both emerging and established figures of art, architecture and design, who also nod to the villa’s elegant spaces, in the exhibition curated by Marion Vignal. Specially commissioned works come courtesy of Laurent Grasso, Mathias Kiss, Franklin Azzi, Sophie Dries, Julian Mayor, Maloles Antignac, Agnès Sébyleau, and Damian O’Sullivan, among others. These and other contemporary pieces – from the likes of Alicja Kwade, Mao Natsunaga and Studio KO, for example – are placed in juxtaposition with historical works by Gio Ponti and friends, including Ico Parisi and Piero Fornasetti.

Genius Loci design exhibition

The diverse nature of the works encompasses multiple media, from painting and sculpture to installation and fashion, ceramics, music and perfume. The pieces find a natural home in and outside the villa, delighting viewers, who are greeted by a light installation by architect Franklin Azzi floating in the courtyard. Inside, there are objets d’art, from Damian O’Sullivan’s double candle holder to Maloles Antignac’s sculptures, which pay tribute to Ponti’s fascination with the hand, as explored in his ceramics. Sophie Dries’ Murano glass mirror studded with stones makes a glinting foil for Julian Mayor’s low welded-steel table, while in the garden, Mathias Kiss draws angel wings in white inlaid marble.

The multisensory approach is manifest in Jérôme Echenoz’s sound installation, which visitors can enjoy upon their amble upstairs, while Barnabé Fillion was inspired by the lightness of being drawn into the building’s clean lines to create a perfume especially for Genius Loci.

After Paris, Genius Loci will visit Venice, Brussels, Milan, London and Los Angeles in a new celebration of artistically interesting buildings.

INFORMATION

‘L‘Ange Volant, Gio Ponti’ is held from 16 – 24 October 2021
geniusloci-experience.com

Lake Como’s Il Sereno Hotel and Milanese designer Patricia Urquiola unveil a new penthouse space, ‘inspired by Post-war Italian glamour, La Dolce Vita, Modernist Italian Designers’ as well as local silk-manufacturing traditions. 

The hotel originally opened in 2016, and expanded into a nearby 16th-century villa in 2018. When it opened, it was the first new structure to be built on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como in 70 years, with a design inspired by local architect Giuseppe Terragni’s Rationalist structures and a palette of colours and materials nodding to its lake surroundings. ‘The lake is all about integrity,’ said Urquiola, who referenced the architect’s rigorous lines in her façade design in glass, wood and stone.

Il Sereno Penthouse: a celebration of Italian design

The latest space to open at Il Sereno is the Signature Penthouse. A one-bedroom suite with breathtaking floor-to-ceiling views of the lake and mountains, a living and dining area as well as lake-facing garden and terrace, the space features a material-rich palette of Venetian Terrazzo floors, Canaletto Walnut ceilings and Ceppo di Gre walls. Throughout, Urquiola selected contemporary pieces (such as her ‘Love Me Tender‘ sofa for Moroso and ‘L60’ bed for Cassina) as well as icons of Italian design, such as Gio Ponti chairs and an ‘Infinito’ bookcase by Franco Albini and Franca Helg dominating the living space. 

The penthouse also marks Il Sereno’s first foray into e-commerce, with a dedicated digital retail space offering the penthouse’s key furniture pieces (from the sofa and bed to the chairs, tables and lighting), modern and contemporary accessories by Ginori, Venini, Bitossi and Salvatori. The shopping selection includes specially-commissioned rugs and blankets used throughout the hotel: ‘Guests were asking us about these pieces, so it felt like a natural move,’ says hotelier Luis Contreras, who worked closely with Urquiola on the hotel’s conception, design and future development. ‘We want to challenge ourselves and try to make something a little bit different,’ he says. ‘If possible, better.’

INFORMATION

Shop Il Sereno Hotel at serenohotels.com

ADDRESS

Via Torrazza, 10
22020 Torno CO
Italy

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Meda is a small town at the heart of Brianza, the industrial zone that unfolds across the green Lombardy plain like a long grey dust plume stretching from Milan towards the Swiss border. Its medieval centre, marked by the frescoed 16th-century church of San Vittore, is hemmed in by a ring of more recent development that peters out into the generic anonymity of industrial Italy.

It’s hard to think of a more appropriate birthplace for Antonio Citterio. What we think of as Italian design depends on this town, and half a dozen like it. Meda is the engine room of the contemporary furniture world, where a web of workshops and factories forms a creative cluster that is to sofas what Silicon Valley once was to laptops. This is where Citterio grew up, and it’s where Flexform, the firm established in 1959 by the Galimberti family, which gave him one of his first jobs, is based.

Antonio Citterio and Flexform: a creative relationship 50 years on

He makes the start of a relationship with the company that has lasted almost 50 years sound remarkably casual. ‘I was 23, I had just finished in the army. I was still studying architecture at the Politecnico in Milan. One of the Galimberti children had been my friend at school, so I went to Flexform and said, let’s do something together.’

Flexform had already made the transition from the traditional designs it had started out with, and had applied the artisanal skills of its craftsmen to a more contemporary design language. It had commissioned a piece as radical as Joe Colombo’s 1969 ‘Tube’ chair. Now it needed reliable bestsellers. ‘This was a time when a lot of furniture looked like sculpture, but I said, let’s do something really calm, and really normal.’ One of the results was the ‘Aria’ sofa, produced with his studio partner at the time, Paolo Nava. 

It belonged to a period in which the sofa was designed to be part of a conventional three-piece suite, and had yet to dominate the contemporary interior. In the average living room in the 1960s, the armchair was the seat of power, occupied by family patriarchs. The matriarch, if she was lucky, got a slightly smaller version to herself. The sofa was for supplicant sons-in-law. Launched around 1980, ‘Aria’ had a wooden frame, foam cushions, and brushed steel legs, accommodating two people in comfort. 

Citterio produced two other early projects for the company and began to play a part in shaping its identity. ‘I was never really Flexform’s art director, but I would talk to them about things,’ he remembers. ‘So I asked Achille Castiglioni to design the stand at the furniture fair a few times. And I suggested that Natalia Corbetta should do the graphics, and that they should work with Gabriele Basilico.’ Basilico was one of Italy’s most distinguished architectural photographers, scrutinizing the relentless urbanization of the country in the 1960s with an unforgiving eye. His work with Flexform was always in monochrome, always contextualizing the furniture in slightly melancholy architectural settings, such as the interior of Gio Ponti’s Pirelli Tower.

Antonio Citterio's Groundpiece for Fexform: a sofa for contemporary life

‘People didn’t understand at first. It took a while for the approach to work,’ says Citterio. ‘The market has changed a lot since then. The market for contemporary design in the 1970s was just six per cent, now it’s the overwhelming majority.’ The way that we live has changed, too. ‘The sofa was not a normal element in the home. If you had one, it was a sofa bed, something to sleep on. My idea was that a sofa could be somewhere to eat and to work, as well as to relax.’

It’s 20 years since Citterio designed ‘Groundpiece’, as the embodiment of that insight. The name is a reference to Donald Judd’s work, not because Citterio believes that his work is art, but because of what he learned from the way that Judd took sculpture off the plinth, to create a more direct relationship with space. Citterio took the sofa off its legs, and, apparently at least, placed it directly on the floor, like the Arab ‘suffah’, which was a raised section of floor softened by carpet or cushion.

As the middle-class living room increased in size, Citterio was able to consider ‘Groundpiece’ as furniture in the round, not backed awkwardly against a wall. ‘We moved the sofa into the middle of the room.’ This liberation allowed him to incorporate a menu of additional elements to the seating. ‘Groundpiece’ has no single fixed form: one or more of the sofa’s arms can incorporate storage shelves; the arm itself has a top wide enough to serve as a coffee table; and the back of the sofa can be used to form a low wall of shelving.

It was a conceptual rather than a technical turning point, blurring the distinction between furniture and architecture, between foreground object and background service. It was made using existing technology, and designed as much on the workshop floor in Meda as it was in Citterio’s studio. There were no technical drawings; he relied instead on the skills of Flexform’s craftsmen to realise his ideas. ‘I worked only with sketches,’ says Citterio. ‘I worked with the man who cuts the fabric to get the line and the proportions.’

‘Groundpiece’ helped transform the sofa from playing a relatively minor role in the repertoire of contemporary furniture to a dominant one. And its success has reinforced the continuing relevance of the Italian design system and its ability to use its old skills in new ways.

INFORMATION

citterio-viel.com
flexform.it

Nanda Vigo’s work was retro-futuristic – objects, lamps, sculptures and interiors that seem to inhabit the space around them like creatures from another world. The artist and designer, who passed away last week in Milan, has seen particular public recognition in recent years, with awards and solo exhibitions in Russia and Germany, and most recently in Milan last year at Palazzo Reale.

During her lifetime, Vigo’s work was recognised from the early days and at important cultural events such as Venice Biennale and Triennale di Milano. She worked with the likes of Gio Ponti and Lucio Fontana on installations, interiors and environments. Vigo was also associated with Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini, who was the first to dedicate the front cover of Domus to her work.

Vigo studied architecture at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and straight after graduating, while still very young, she moved to the United States – she was drawn in by the idea of studying under Frank Lloyd Wright. Vigo lasted less than a month in his atelier in Taliesin West, before moving on to San Francisco, but found that the design environment there didn’t suit her. Her mindset of the American experience changed in 2014 when her work was exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York as part of the retrospective show on Group Zero. Vigo was a founder and member of the artist group alongside Heinz Mack, Enrico Castellani, Otto Piene, Yayoi Kusama and Piero Manzoni, who was also Vigo’s life partner until his passing in 1963.

In 1959, Vigo returned to Milan and began a career that thrived on the multidisciplinary nature of the Italian city and the craftsmen and  manufacturers in the surrounding area. In 1964, Gio Ponti was commissioned to design the house of an art collector and Vigo designed the interiors in white tiles and fake fur. Known as ‘The beetle under the leaf’, the house located in Malo, Vicenza is still intact.

Many of Vigo’s other pioneering projects that are no longer in existence such as the Zero House, the Blue House, the Yellow House and the Black House – designed between the 1960s and 1970s for clients with a passion for art – were spaces articulated by paintings, reflective surfaces, transparent glass panels and lights. The distinct visual language of Nanda Vigo was characterised by a melding of her obsessions: the domestic space, the refraction of light, the transparency of glass and a sense of suspended reality.

At the age of seven, when she was an avid reader of sci-fi comic books (particularly Flash Gordon), she was strolling through the streets of Como one day and was blown away by the architecture of the Casa del Fascio by Giuseppe Terragni. References to the sunlight piercing through the glass blocks of that building, creating overlapping forms and illusions can be found in some of her most famous works of the 1960s as well as in some of her sculptural lamps, the most recent of which are made with LED lights and pyramid-shaped mirrors.

As an industrial designer Nanda Vigo had a brilliant career working with some companies at the forefront of design such as Kartell, Flou, Glas Italia, Acerbis and Driade. She created iconic pieces with Arredoluce and Conconi such as the first Italian halogen lamp ‘Golden Gate’ and ‘Due più’ the tubular steel chair upholstered in synthetic fur.

Last year Paris: this year Rome. Forty years after the death of Gio Ponti, the great Italian architect, designer and publisher receives his second major retrospective in under 12 months – this time at MAXXI, the Italian capital’s Zaha Hadid-designed National Museum of 21st-Century Arts.

While the Paris show, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, made a heroic attempt to encompass the full range of Ponti’s life and work, the new exhibition at MAXXI (which opened this week and runs till 13 April 2020) focuses squarely on his architecture, with occasional asides examining his industrial and household designs and the influence of his role as the founding editor of Domus and Stile magazines.

Curated by Mariastella Casciato and Fulvio Irace, ‘Gio Ponti: Loving Architecture' takes over the museum’s soaring fifth-floor gallery, and overcomes the challenge of its sloping floor with ease – a testament both to MAXXI’s installation team and the instantly engaging quality of the many models, drawings and plans on show.

The exhibition is divided into eight sections, examining Ponti’s approach to houses, nature, classicism, facades, lightness, skyscrapers, urban planning and ‘architecture as crystal’, derived from his gnomic claim that ‘when architecture is pure, it is pure as a crystal – magic, closed, exclusive, autonomous, uncontaminated, uncorrupted, absolute, definitive like a crystal.’

Rome may seem an odd place to stage an exhibition about Ponti, who spent most of his life living and working in Milan, but as Casciato points out, ‘he was an architect of national and international renown when that was still a rarity, and he knew everyone and travelled everywhere, when that was far more difficult than it is today.’

With an essay-filled catalogue and a series of newly commissioned photo essays featuring some of Ponti’s finest buildings, including Taranto Cathedral and the Villa Planchart in Caracas, this is a full-service show – as well as being an excellent excuse to visit Rome, if any excuse were needed.

INFORMATION

maxxi.art

ADDRESS

Gio Ponti: Loving Architecture runs at the MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome until 13 April 2020

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Gio Ponti could play it straight when he had to (think Milan’s Pirelli Tower or his La Cornuta espresso machine for Pavoni), but should a freewheeling client come along, the Italian architect’s imagination would let loose. Nowhere more so than in private homes, where he would call on his key creative collaborators – Lucio Fontana, Piero Fornasetti, Nanda Vigo – and almost every other talented craftsperson working in Italy in the postwar period, to create remarkable domestic mise en scenes.

Perhaps the most daring of them is La Casa di Fantasia. Created in 1951 for La famiglia Lucano in an apartment block in central Milan, every surface, from floors to walls to wardrobes, was decorated. Piero Fornasetti papered the walls with images of playing cards and books, Fausto Melotti sculpted soap dishes for the bathroom walls and Ponti’s own surreal figurines, inspired by La Commedia dell Arte, were displayed throughout.

‘Every single surface was treated to create a magical moment,’ says Domenico Raimondo, head of design for Europe at Phillips auction house. ‘The space was so extreme. With its mirrored doors and surprise through-views from one room to another, it resembled a series of stage sets through which its occupants were free to roam without a role.’

The apartment is currently being recreated in London in the Phillips showroom in preparation for an auction of key pieces on 21 March. More than 30 lots will feature, among them a chest of drawers by Ponti with painted glass by illustrator Edina Altara (estimate £45,000-65,000), Ponti’s Positivo-negativo wall mounted cabinet (£40,000-£60,000) and several of his statuettes, among them his king and queen (£15,000-£20,000).

‘The Ponti school was enormous,’ explains Raimondo, who is holding the sale in conjunction with Italian auction house Cambi. ‘Casa di Fantasia, with its extraordinary metaphysical scenery, incorporates some of its most iconic and sought after pieces.’ By the time he died in 1979, Ponti was celebrated as a key midcentury polymath. What’s more, adds Raimondo: ‘One of the attractions of Italian design from this era is that was generally created by architects rather than decorators, and as such, it has a certain rigour.’

INFORMATION

Phillips in association with Cambi presents Casa di Fantasia, on show from 15-21 March (auction takes place 21 March) at Phillips London. For more information visit the Phillips website and Cambiaste website

ADDRESS

Phillips
30 Berkeley Square
Mayfair, London
W1J 6EX

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It would be easy to imagine the Molteni family living in a sort of show home, a homage to sleek modernity surrounded by all their factory’s latest pieces. In reality, while Casa Molteni has iconic qualities (it is, after all, the work of Tobia Scarpa, son of Carlo Scarpa and a major Italian architect in his own right), it is a much-lived-in, much loved, 30-year-old home. The three-storey house is located near the family business in Brianza, the furniture capital of Italy, where the brand rubs shoulders with the nation’s other big names – Cassina, Cappellini, Minotti, Flexform, Poliform and B&B Italia.

Casa Molteni sits in a lush sloping garden in a gated community, just outside the village of Carimate. But this is no over-manicured development. The gate-keeper at the main entrance operates out of a cavern-like office embedded into the landscape and covered in vines, and on the Moltenis’ own gate, their surname has been written below the buzzer in pencil.

The land – originally the local castle’s vineyards and orchards – was sold in the 1960s and turned into a golf course and housing plots. Of the Moltenis’ neighbouring houses, around a dozen are by noted architects of the 1960s and 1970s, including Vico Magistretti's Casa Cassina. But while many other residents treat their houses as weekend retreats, the Moltenis have lived here full time since the house was completed in 1986 – this is where Molteni & C’s president Carlo and his wife Luisella brought up their three children, Francesca, Giulia and Giovanni.

Molteni&C had been working with Scarpa since 1972, and as well as designing furniture, the architect had revamped Molteni’s showrooms in Milan, Rome and Paris. So Carlo felt confident in giving him a pretty open brief.

‘The Scarpas (Tobia and architect wife Afra) had built themselves a very simple but interesting house in Trevignano,' says Carlo. 'It was very dramatic and without any doors. I wanted ours to be similar to that, but a little bit more normal.' Casa Molteni does have some doors – all floor to ceiling in birch with iroco trim – but not many, so the eating and sitting spaces segue into one another.

In fact the Scarpas' own house, rather than being replicated, served as inspiration. For a start, it was on a very different sort of site – flat and surrounded by vineyards – whereas, says the architect, who is now in his late seventies: 'this house is on a hill and the light plays a particular role. I remember that during the conversations with the family I discovered that 
Mrs Molteni was a great lover of gardens and flowers.' The idea of the house in Trevignano was left in the background as a leitmotif, allowing Scarpa to work on creating a building that would take advantage of the plot and make allowances for a large Japanese cherry tree and other existing flora.

The result is an L-shaped plan, with a basement for car parking, services and staff quarters; extensive communal living spaces, inside and out, on the ground floor; five bedrooms on the first floor arranged around a balcony; and a roof terrace with views to the Alps, Lake Como and Milan. Journeys between floors are made up and down an unobtrusive, space-saving staircase – there are no big sweeping, mansion-style gestures here.

The entrance is just as unassuming. Once through the gate, visitors make their way up a winding brick stairway to a low-key front door. This opens onto one of several living rooms, and immediately you know you’re in a special place, furnished with many of the newly reissued Gio Ponti collection for Molteni & C.

Off this living room is a small study with a multi-hued Vitra sideboard – Molteni distributes the Swiss manufacturer in Italy. This is the only ground floor room with a curtain rail at the window, but Luisella never got round to putting curtains up as she likes to be able to see her garden, created by landscape architect Margheriti Piante.

The main living space is an informal dining room that leads straight on to a sitting room with a fireplace that stretches the full length of one wall. The family is keen to point out the Venetian stucco detailing on the curved mantelpiece, and Guilia has no qualms about homing in on a small portion where the paint is missing. As a child, she would fashion her own awning out of a sheet to keep the sun out of the room. This sheet was then stuck to the stucco causing the paint to come away.

The family takes their casual meals at a long 1980s Luca Meda prototype dining table, sitting on Aldo Rossi chairs from the same period. From here they can see straight out to the covered patio through a pair of double-height French windows. 'These doors are always open in the summer and it’s like living outside,' says Carlo. Above this space is the balcony, and Guilia has fond memories as a child of hanging over it to listen in on the adults’ conversation.

Off the large kitchen, with its Molteni units and Carrara marble work surface, is the more formal dining room, dominated by a heavy 1940s oval table that used to sit in the president of the Bank of Italy’s boardroom. Luisella admits that when the children were young it was a noisy house – hardly surprising given all the Venetian-style cement-and-gravel flooring (with not a single rug in sight on the ground floor), brick and cement walls and iron beams. But she likes the industrial chic of the shell, which reminds her of the sparse interiors of the art galleries of Manhattan in the 1970s.

Yet because these materials are offset by the warm wooden doors and window frames, the colourful artwork and the eclectic mix of wood and upholstered furniture, the Casa Molteni never feels cold or unwelcoming. It's also rich with design invention from earlier decades. 'With all the prototypes around, the house is like an archive,' says Carlo. 'Sometimes I surprise myself with the good pieces we made in the past.'

As originally featured in the December 2012 issue of Wallpaper* (W*165)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Molteni & C website

A run-down port city on the edge of Europe that has suffered from decades of industrial decline, and an iconic building designed by a world-famous architect at the peak of his career. The description may sound a lot like Bilbao, but where are the hordes of tourists and the booming economy?

The iconic building I’m referring to here is not by Frank Gehry but by Gio Ponti, the legendary Italian architect-designer best known for the Pirelli Tower in Milan and the ‘Superleggera’ chair, which he created for Cassina in 1957. Yet this is arguably the greatest work of his later years, and it deserves to be rescued from the obscurity into which it has gradually sunk since it was completed in 1970.

The city is Taranto, which sits beneath the heel of southern Italy. A major naval base, it has a remarkable history and a spectacular setting between a sweeping bay and the Mare Piccolo, an inland sea. Founded as a Spartan colony in the eighth century BC, it grew to become one of the biggest cities in pre-Roman Europe, but sadly, contemporary Taranto has seen its fortunes fade. Though it had a minor boom in the 19th century, in the 1930s Mussolini had a quarter of the ancient centre demolished to build a row of grim apartment blocks, and it was badly bombed in the Second World War. To add insult to injury, Europe’s biggest steelworks belches dust and dioxins into the air, giving Taranto the unenviable reputation of being one of the worst polluted cities on earth.

Back in the 1960s, though, a mood of optimism, and the rapid expansion of the so-called Città Nuova to the south east, convinced the local archbishop, Guglielmo Motolese, that Taranto needed a new cathedral to supplement the small 11th-century basilica in the old town. The choice of Gio Ponti as architect might seem unusually enlightened, but Ponti was a deeply religious man and had already designed several churches in Milan. Not surprisingly, he jumped at the chance of building a cathedral and, between 1964 and the start of construction in 1967, he developed what is arguably his most complex and original plan.

The design of the Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio, as it became known, was inspired by its maritime surroundings. In place of a central crossing tower, Ponti came up with the idea of a ‘sail’. A kind of belfry without bells, the full width of the nave and 40m high, it is built from two concrete walls just a metre apart, perforated with vertical slits and hexagonal openings, including what Ponti called a ‘door to the sky, opening onto the immensity and the mystery of space and time’. The west front follows this openwork idea, featuring a stripped-down version of a medieval screen, with Gothic arches replaced by triangular canopies. A stepped podium raises the cathedral above a piazza and a trinity of reflecting pools that symbolise the ocean, while sea-green floor tiles add an appropriately aqueous accent inside.

The interior is equally considered. Triple bronze doors lead to a galleried narthex and the wide, low nave, lit by a scattering of tiny hexagonal windows tucked between the V-shaped springers of the transverse vaults. Beneath the ‘sail’, where the crossing would normally be, the roof level rises dramatically, flooding the choir with light from a full-width window immediately above but hidden from the nave. Five steps higher than the nave, the choir is flanked by two side chapels with galleries above, enclosed by three levels of arcades, their reveals and soffits painted in various shades of green. Stepped seating rises behind the futuristic winged altar, which is flanked by two freestanding columns supporting spindly crosses that also read as anchors – another nautical touch.

Early photographs of the cathedral show it on the edge of the city, surrounded by fields and olive groves. Sadly, this bucolic setting was not to last. Though Ponti intended the building’s stark outlines to be softened by lush surrounding gardens, with the ‘sail’ and the freestanding arches that frame the side doors designed specifically to support climbing plants, these plans came to nothing. Today, this masterpiece of 20th-century architecture is a poignant sight. Though the interiors have been maintained fairly well, the exterior is disfigured by graffiti and desperately in need of a lick of paint. Those idyllic olive groves, meanwhile, were long ago buried beneath blocks of 1970s housing, which surround the cathedral on three sides, while the back overlooks a rubbish-strewn car park.

Sophie Bouilhet Dumas, Gio Ponti’s grand-niece and (with Olivier Gabet and Salvatore Licitra) co-curator of a major Ponti show coming up at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs, believes it to be one of the architect’s greatest works. ‘Taranto Cathedral is the most accomplished expression of Ponti’s personal vision of a “pantheistic” religious art,’ she says. ‘It represents the achievement of an architectural dream of building an edifice merged with water, vegetation and air.’

In Bilbao, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum gave the city a new lease of life. Is it possible that a restoration of Ponti’s cathedral could do the same for Taranto? There are some promising signs. Late last year, a consortium that included ArcelorMittal offered £1.8bn for the city’s steelworks operator, in a deal that included a commitment to clean up the site and reduce emissions to environmentally acceptable levels. (The deal awaits a ruling from the European Commission.) Taranto has an ambitious new mayor, and there is pressure from local groups to improve the city’s image.

Admittedly, with a population of just 200,000 (greater Bilbao is over four times its size) and high unemployment, Taranto struggles to fund even basic services, never mind cultural icons. Yet the Guggenheim Bilbao was largely funded by the regional government, not the city. And surely the renovation of an architectural icon of European significance would be the perfect candidate for European funding? Watch this space – but, in the meantime, go and see.§

As originally featured in the June 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*231)

Gio Ponti’s ‘D.859.1’ table was originally designed to sit atop a Manhattan skyscraper. It was the centerpiece of the Milanese master’s most extensive project in New York: an auditorium perched on the eighth-floor terrace of Harrison & Abramovitz’s Time & Life Building. When it first opened its doors in 1959, Ponti’s auditorium was the ultimate gathering place for the sharply suited businessman. Indeed, it was intended to woo advertisers and facilitate high-powered business meetings for Henry Luce’s Time Inc, then at the apex of a mighty media industry. Hoping to beef up his profile in the Big Apple, Ponti had rained down on that little space all the lustre of Italian luxury he could muster.

A 1960 issue of Architectural Forum describes the chapel-like space as bordering on the Baroque, its floors ‘a grand lava flow of marbleised sheet rubber in yellow with streaks of green, and dark blue’. Its walls were ‘punched with luminous-colored glass block’, and its furniture ‘neo-art-nouveau, [with] as many joints as a praying mantis’. The table, at 3.6m, was long enough to comfortably fit ten people. Originally made of solid ash, with curving splayed legs like flying buttresses, it held an impressive tabletop tapered at either end that felt years ahead of its time.

The Time & Life auditorium was met initially with breathless regard, but gradually fell out of favour. As time went on and styles evolved, the space was locked up. It was unceremoniously gutted in 1981 and its pieces sold off at international auctions. Happily, 60 years later, a piece of this crown jewel has been revived for a wider audience.

Launching at Salone del Mobile, the ‘D.859.1’ table is the latest project to emerge from Italian furniture giant Molteni & C’s ten-year exclusive licence with the Gio Ponti Archives. The collaboration began in 2010 during a visit by Carlo Molteni, the company’s president, to the studio of photographer Paolo Rosselli, Ponti’s grandson. A bookcase caught the furniture magnate’s eye. ‘He was immediately drawn to it,’ says Francesca Molteni, Carlo’s daughter and the company’s director of special projects. ‘He didn’t immediately know it was by Ponti, but he knew there was something special about it. It turned out to be a piece that had never been widely produced.’

The bookcase in question was the ‘D.357.1’, designed for Ponti’s family home on Milan’s via Dezza. Like much of Ponti’s furniture, it was a one-off piece created only for that particular space. Astounded that a major design by one of the greatest midcentury architects could live hidden for years, Carlo hatched a plan to let Ponti’s forgotten gems see the light of day.

‘We did a lot of research with the Gio Ponti Archives,’ says Francesca. ‘We found pieces that hadn’t been produced industrially, or had just been produced for one-off projects.’ Following the green light from Ponti’s heirs, Molteni & C got to work recreating and preserving the designer’s lesser-known works. ‘We need to sustain the strong legacy of Italian masters,’ explains Francesca.

Salvatore Licitra, another of Ponti’s grandsons, oversees the archive and works with Francesca to decide which pieces will go into production. Having already released pieces including an armchair from the Ponti-designed Villa Planchart in Caracas and a side table from Ponti’s via Dezza home, both parties agreed it was time to add a showstopper table. The ‘D.859.1’ table hadn’t had much of a life beyond the Time & Life building. Molteni & C had to rely on the vast trove of technical drawings in Ponti’s archive to recreate it.

‘Ponti invented furniture like this because he would have liked to have made it widely available,’ says Licitra, ‘but the industry wasn’t sophisticated enough to produce such pieces.’ The Architectural Forum review describes the curves of Ponti’s furniture as ‘beyond the capacity of American mechanical civilization’. Though he often worked with American company Singer, more complicated designs, including the ‘D.859.1’ table, were made by artisans in Italy. Now, with the advent of machines capable of shaping wood into Ponti’s fluid lines, Molteni & C is able to produce the table on a larger scale. ‘He was always ahead of his time’, says Licitra.

As originally featured in the May 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*230)

INFORMATION

The ‘D.859.1’ table is at the Molteni & C booth from 17 – 22 April at Salone del Mobile. For more information, visit the Molteni & C website

ADDRESS

Hall 20, Rho Fiera
Strada Statale Sempion, 28
20017
Milan

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Left, Lemaire

A jolt of colour contributed to Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran’s ode to German aesthetics of the 1970s and 1980s.

Shirt, £270; trousers, £395; shoes, £340, all by Lemaire


Right, Christopher Kane

The designer’s saccharine yet sensual domestic goddess favoured frothy ruffled details and scarlet shades.

Coat, £3,995, by Christopher Kane. Earrings, £225, by Fay Andrada

As originally featured in the February 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*227)

Far left, Céline

Powerful proportions informed Phoebe Philo’s collection, like this draped dress with an accentuating leather waistline.

Dress, €4,500, by Céline. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler. Tights, £35, by Wolford


Left, Lanvin

In a collection inspired by our fragmented digital age, different looks were spliced together, such as this utility-focused boiler suit and jacket.

Coat, £2,250; jumpsuit, £2,650; collar, £280, all by Lanvin


Right, Jil Sander

As part of their debut for the German house, Luke and Lucie Meier offset monastic shapes against skin-baring chequered fabrics.

Dress, £2,220; culottes, £560, both by Jil Sander. Earrings, £240, by Ambush. ‘Stromboli’ table, €5,800, by India Mahdavi

Left, Dior Homme

Sharp tailoring was offset by a soft nostalgia, evoked by ribbon scarves bearing the Rue de Marignan address of the Dior men’s studio in Paris.

Jacket, £1,600; trousers, £590; scarf, £230, all by Dior Homme. Shoes, £387, by Pierre Hardy


Right, Dior

Maria Grazia Chiuri paid homage to Niki de Saint Phalle, this trench coat nodding to the French-American sculptor’s bold use of colour.

Coat, £4,700; boots, £1,150, both by Dior

Left, Raf Simons

There were Japanese elements to the Belgian designer’s offering, which featured oversized blazers buttoned across the chest in homage to the cut of a kimono.

Blazer, €1,239, by Raf Simons


Right, Hermès

Workwear stitching and movement-friendly shapes did the heavy lifting in Véronique Nichanian’s relaxed offering.

Shirt, £590; trousers, £540, both by Hermès. Scarf, vintage, from Kiliwatch Paris. ‘CH23’ dining chair, £569, by Hans J Wegner, for Carl Hansen & Søn

Left, Saint Laurent

Anthony Vaccarello continued his love affair with the 1980s with voluminous puffball silhouettes inspired by vintage haute couture.

Dress, £12,855, by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler


Right, Louis Vuitton

For his Hawaii-inspired collection, menswear director Kim Jones juxtaposed monogrammed surfer tops with oversized Wall Street suiting.

Jacket, £1,950; shirt, £600; top, £440; trousers, £650, all by Louis Vuitton. ‘D.156.3’ armchair, €4,524, by Gio Ponti, for Molteni & C


Far right, Louis Vuitton

Meanwhile, head of womenswear Nicolas Ghesquière used leather to add a modern edge to the high necks and wide collars of regimental frock coats.

Coat, £7,500, by Louis Vuitton. Earrings, £225, by Fay Andrada

Left, Gucci

Part of a catwalk collection that blended gender, genre and decade, Alessandro Michele’s gently flaring suit has real retro flair.

Jacket, £1,310; shirt, £355; trousers, £435; shoes, £2,070, all by Gucci


Right, Loewe

The Madrid-based house celebrates contemporary craft in this reinterpretation of the trench coat, shredded into curling streams of fabric.

Coat, £4,890; boots, £725, both by Loewe. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler. ‘Henri’ bench, €4,860, by India Mahdavi

Far left, Prada

The women’s collection sported polka dots, plastics and fake folds, emphasising Miuccia Prada’s fascination with punk, 1950s fashion and trompe-l’oeil. 

Coat, £1,810, by Prada. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler


Left, Prada

For menswear, her triple-layered silhouettes looked to comic strips, retro spacesuits and colour-blocked bowling shirts.

Coat, £3,005; shirt (tan), £435; boiler suit (red), £1,030, all by Prada


Right, Ermenegildo Zegna

Alessandro Sartori matched sports-luxe silhouettes with organic shades, as seen in this combo of caramel overcoat and trousers with jogging bottom detail.

Coat, £2,860; trousers, £800, both by Ermenegildo Zegna Couture. Shoes, £340, by Lemaire. Scarf, vintage, from Kiliwatch Paris. ‘Henri’ table, €11,880, by India Mahdavi

Left, Proenza Schouler

With this corset-detail overcoat, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez gave outerwear silhouettes an eveningwear vibe.

Coat, €3,170, by Proenza Schouler. ‘D.156.3’ armchair, as before


Right, Chanel

Karl Lagerfeld took on the elements with plastic fantastic double-breasted coats, rain hats and gloves.

Coat, £11,740, by Chanel. Earrings, €635, by Proenza Schouler. Tights, £35, by Wolford. ‘Henri’ bench, as before

As part of this year’s  anniversary celebrations, Cassina commissioned photographers Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno to follow the work of its artisans. Here, a master carpenter assembles a ‘’699 Superleggera’’ chair, an iconic model designed by Gio Ponti for Cassina. Made of a natural ashwood frame and India cane seat, the ‘‘super lightweight’’ chair has been in production without interruption since its creation in 1957.

A squat 1940s workshop, set behind a single train track in blue-collar Meda, Lombardy, produced the first industrialised models for the Italian furniture maker Cassina. For a while, the Cassina family lived here too, running a small shop on the premises. While Milan, 20km away, became the pretty face of modern Italian design, here in Meda is where the Cassinas got their fingernails dirty. This year Cassina turns 90, and to mark the occasion, the pioneer of 20th-century Italian design got a manicure, facelift and more besides.

In Meda the Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola – Cassina’s art director for nearly three years – has transformed the old production facility into a post-industrial nirvana. Urquiola has sheathed the front courtyard in theatrical perforated-aluminium curtains,  smoothed the rough stone surfaces, built an ‘tower’ in perforated Cassina-red metal and reached into the back catalogue of Cassina maestri to furnish the cavernous spaces: 1949 side tables by Piero Lissoni as well as low ‘Refolo’ tables by Charlotte Perriand and ‘LC2’ sofas by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Perriand in updated sorbet-green and blue. To create an intimate breakout space she’s installed a replica of the Refuge Tonneau in the ‘refreshment room’. The futuristic mobile shelter was designed by Perriand and Jeanneret in 1938 and produced for the first time by Cassina in 2012.

The renovated central courtyard now features an ‘office tower’ in Cassina-red perforated metal, designed by the brand’s art director Patricia Urquiola. © Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno, 2017. Courtesy of Galleria Vistamare, Pescara

It all encapsulates beautifully Cassina’s philosophy, something managing director Gianluca Armento calls looking back to move forward. It’s counterintuitive, but I believe the truer you are to where you’ve come from, the more innovative you’ll be, he says, after unveiling the space to employees last summer. Inaugurating this new, bolder look for Cassina HQ is the culmination of two years of dusting-off and deconstructing old classics – from Gerrit Rietveld’s 1935 ‘Utrecht’ armchair, upholstered with Bertjan Pot’s triangle-pattern jacquard, to the relaunch of the ‘Pampas’ chair by Le Corbusier, Jeanneret and Perriand. Similarly, Urquiola’s streamlining and ‘challenging of the original architecture at Meda shows the real spirit of Cassina in a more modern way’, says Armento.

‘The soul of Cassina is making advancements on how we create things. What do we want to leave behind? Not just midcentury modern pieces, but an evolution. Keeping it authentic while modifying the angle and story is a science of how to maintain a glorious heritage. And anniversaries are part of that.’ A rather literal expression of that sentiment can be found in the HQ’s new gallery, metres from where co-founder Cesare Cassina first tested the soundness of Gio Ponti’s ‘699 Superleggera’ chair in the 1950s. The inaugural exhibition, by photographers Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno, follows Cassina artisans as they piece together furnishings such as the ‘Cicognino’ table by Franco Albini and the new ‘646 Leggera’, an updated version of the classic ‘Superleggera’.

Linke’s photographs zoom in on the tools of the trade: Bacci CNC routers for fashioning round-edged ash legs and computers equipped with sophisticated 3D programmes. Ultimately, though, the same hands-on method from the 1950s takes over. The process of capturing it, Linke says, was downright anthropological. ‘The “Leggera” chair is shaped by artisans who have been working this way for centuries, but also by the classical industrial process and finally the era of robotics. So you have one piece of furniture from three different eras.’

And so continues the dialogue between modernism and the present day, the intertwining of handcraft – ‘which is now often forgotten, but fascinating,’ says Linke – with the outer limits of digital technology. ‘Every component has a story, and finding that language to fit them together has an elegance, like writing software code or choreography.’

To expound further on the theme, this month Cassina releases its 90th-anniversary monograph – no mere coffee-table retrospective, but rather a treatise on the industry moving forward. Edited by Pin-Up magazine founder Felix Burrichter, This Will Be the Place taps contemporary experts including designer Konstantin Grcic, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina and architect Zhao Yang, and asks them to arrive at a vision of the future home based on their appreciation of the past.

The significance of history ‘as a point of reference of excellence’ is something Barbara Lehmann, director of Cassina’s archives, sets up in her introduction. ‘There can be no future without a knowledge of the past,’ she writes. Armento insists the brand has always looked forward a generation for creative input. ‘Some of the furniture we produce was designed over 100 years ago, but remember, the designers were in their twenties, thirties and forties, creating change, creating progress,’ he says. ‘That is still our responsibility, and that is what I want to pay tribute to.’

As originally featured in the October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*223)

A replica of Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret’s 1938 Refuge Tonneau takes centre stage in the communal area of Cassina’s Meda HQ.

Models from the Cassina archive, including ‘Superleggera’ and ‘Leggera’ chairs, photographed by Linke and Bruno for the inaugural exhibition of the HQ’s new gallery space.

Cassina’s 90th-anniversary monograph This Will Be the Place (Rizzoli, €80).

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Cassina website

The story of Bottega Ghianda demonstrates the entrepreneurial guile, good fortune and smart connections common to so many of Italy’s finest family operations. It begins in 1889, when Iginio Ghianda established a small bottega, or workshop, next to his home in Bovisio-Masciago, in the heart of Brianza. He started out producing inlaid parquet flooring, before moving into wooden aeroplane propellers and then, from around 1920, furniture.

Pierluigi Ghianda was born in 1926 into this family of falegnami, or woodworkers. After Iginio died in 1938, his wife Serafina ran the business while Pierluigi and his brother Giuseppe juggled their studies and apprenticeships. They took over in 1945.

In 1936, Gio Ponti had asked Iginio to work on a writing desk, ‘Montecatini’. The relationship with Ponti proved pivotal for the workshop, with the architect and designer requesting prototypes of his creations. The workshop went on to collaborate with manufacturers such as Cassina, De Padova, Skipper and Knoll on product development. Ponti’s patronage also encouraged a steady flow of orders from great names in Italian architecture, including Gae Aulenti, Cini Boeri, the Castiglioni brothers, Gianfranco Frattini, Richard Sapper and Ettore Sottsass. Ghianda craftsmanship brought their designs to life, producing bespoke furniture and fittings for international projects such as Aulenti’s Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and for Livio Castiglioni’s homes for industrialist family the Agnellis.

Pierluigi was established as the go-to man for advanced woodworking. Architects and designers sought his advice on construction, joints, inserts and connections, often developed without the use of nails, screws, bolts or any ‘foreign’ materials. As Mario Bellini puts it, Pierluigi offered ‘quality and solutions to the limit of construction techniques’. In 1986, when husband and- wife duo Jean-Louis Dumas of Hermès and architect Rena Dumas wanted to introduce the ‘Pippa’ line of folding furniture, they too sought out Pierluigi. They knew he shared their obsession with quality.

Romeo Sozzi, another master of Italian woodworking, first met Pierluigi in 1985, three years before founding his own furniture company, Promemoria. In 2015, Pierluigi, now 87, was looking to secure the future of his workshop. His wife, Francesca, had died and his three children had rejected the plane and chisel as a career option. Later the same year, just a month before he died, Pierluigi signed a deal with Sozzi, who acquired all the bottega’s intellectual property, as well as its craftsmen. Pierluigi’s eightstrong team moved to a new workshop in Valmadrera, around 40km away from Bovisio Masciago, but just a five-minute drive from Promemoria’s base.

Sozzi gave the workshop a new name, Bottega Ghianda, and hired Milan-based architect Michele De Lucchi as artistic director. De Lucchi is completely smitten by the product. He says his role is ‘to assist and accompany Romeo Sozzi on this adventure, to maintain the spirit of Ghianda’. According to De Lucchi, Pierluigi was a man who ‘knew the culture of wood, the story of wood and the identity of wood’.

The two had never met, although Pierluigi had developed prototypes for Memphis while De Lucchi was part of the design collective. ‘The special thing about his story is the quality. How do you make something like this? It’s incredibly perfect,’ De Lucchi says, pointing to a flawless joint. ‘For someone who works in wood, it’s magic. You can’t understand how they make it – it’s exaggerated and outside the usual dimensions.’

De Lucchi has designed Bottega Ghianda’s very first store in Milan’s Brera district, using panels of ‘light black’ wood, lacquered and hand-polished with steel wool five times over. This process gives the panels a look of blackened stainless steel, albeit with a warm and highly tactile touch; they reinforce the flawless finishing of Ghianda’s products.

The goods are illuminated with museum-quality lighting and displayed as if floating away from the wall, on soft-cornered rectangular shelves covered in grey Loro Piana felt – the perfect complement to the warmth of the woods, such as Swiss pear (Italian pear is no good, according to Sozzi, as the trees are cut too low). De Lucchi has used the same lacquered and polished wood, as well as cream coloured Loro Piana cashmere, for the packaging. ‘The ceremonial aspect of the packaging is very important, as you only have one opportunity to have a first impression,’ he says.

The store displays a collection of objets and furniture designed between 1918 and 2002 by the likes of Aulenti, Bellini, Boeri, Frattini, Carl Magnusson and Emanuela Frattini Magnusson, plus one new piece by De Lucchi and historic items from Iginio Ghianda’s era. Over the years, Iginio assembled quite a collection, developed with these architects and produced and sold from the workshop directly. The pieces include a bookmark, first realised in 1935 for a passionate Venetian bibliophile, and a set of photo frames based on the frames made by Iginio for the Musée d’Orsay.

Also on display is Bellini’s ‘Étagère’ shelving, designed as a kind of dare after his first meeting with Pierluigi Ghianda in 1989. ‘Knowing you have as a partner an absolute master, I designed a piece using a large amount of very thin vertical columns to connect different shelves – a sort of small, lightweight skyscraper,’ Bellini says.

The ‘Kyoto’ table, from 1974, is made up of 1,705 individual 45-degree joints. It’s a design by Gianfranco Frattini, who trained with Ponti and became one of Pierluigi’s closest collaborators. A wastepaper basket by Emanuela Frattini Magnusson from 1986, the ‘Cestino a baguettes’, is constructed from 89 beech strips, known as baguettes, connected top and bottom by 178 spacers and finished with wood-tipped brass rivets. All the bottega’s pieces are stamped with an oak leaf in relief. ‘Ghianda’ means acorn and the oak-leaf logo was designed by graphic designer Pino Tovaglia, who also created the workshop’s ‘Amore’ puzzle in 1959.

Once, when Marella Agnelli, the wife of Fiat owner Gianni Agnelli, visited the workshop, Pierluigi saw her taking out a plastic pillbox. He thought it was most unsuitable and decided to offer his wooden pillbox. This is a piece that impresses De Lucchi a great deal. As he takes one in his hand, he says: ‘Wood never stays still. It’s alive, it’s a fibre which absorbs humidity as it breathes. To create this piece you must have courage – it’s a surprise, a marvel.’ For him, this is the essence of Bottega Ghianda.

As for the future, De Lucchi feels it is essential, for the health of the business, to develop new products – it is ‘not a commercial decision, but a question of vitality’. Bottega Ghianda lives.

As originally featured in the May 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*218)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Bottega Ghianda website

ADDRESS

Bottega Ghianda
Via Formentini 9
Milan

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Mario Bellini’s long and distinguished career spans design brands and counter-trends. As a designer who grew up in the austerity of post-war Italy, then began his career at the height of Pop and the Italian industrial boom, Bellini would be forgiven for an unrooted eclecticism. Yet what defines his work (still in progress) is a commitment to a sense of place and a sense of beauty, but bound up with a functional rigour that transcends shifts in the way we interact with places and things.

As his ‘Italian Beauty’ exhibition opens at the Milan Triennale, it’s perhaps time to take stock and celebrate a lifetime in design. This is not a retrospective, according to Bellini, but a ‘prospective’, and the 1,200 sq m show takes you through a career spanning six decades. The space is a stage for Bellini’s many and varied products, from chairs to typewriters to lamps, with seating areas placed before vast screens to give an impressive, immersive insight into a suite of his studio’s best-known buildings.

Bellini can lay claim to being one of the progenitors of modern technological style, together with other precursors like Dieter Rams and Jacob Jensen. During his long and fruitful collaboration with Olivetti, he reshaped the office landscape into a playful, colourful space that banished the tans and greys of the dominant IBM approach. And where Rams brought a Northern European austerity to consumer design, Bellini has always headed in a more humanist, playful direction.

‘Italian Beauty’ begins with a vast cabinet of curiosities containing objects and memorabilia that have inspired Bellini, including pieces by Gio Ponti and Issey Miyake – historical fragments of memory, art and literature. ‘I’ve designed furniture, objects, machines, buildings,’ Bellini says. ‘So to design an exhibition about myself is to go back to something I did at the very start of my career. But it’s also more special and challenging.’

Bellini was born in 1935. Exceptionally talented at sketching from a young age, thanks to the encouragement of a grandfather, he spent five years studying at Milan’s polytechnic, graduating in 1959 and beginning his career as primarily an exhibition and product designer. In Olivetti, he found a client that shared his love of detail. In Bellini, Olivetti found a designer who could simplify its increasingly complex wares and give them a seductive yet friendly appearance. Their collaborations included the legendary ‘Programma 101’ of 1964, an impressive calculating machine that many consider to be the first desktop computer.

The Olivetti partnership made Bellini a major force in industrial design, whose works were collected by MoMA and who was eagerly sought by other clients, such as Cassina (for whom he designed showrooms), Vitra and B&B Italia. His guiding principle is to combine functionality with finesse – or ‘dreaming and doing’, as he describes what he learnt in his student days. ‘You have to be talented to answer needs and yet end up with beauty,’ he says. ‘Needs, functions, materials, costs and rules all have to come together. But beauty also comes too. To create a simple object you need grace and poetic beauty.’

Throughout his career, Bellini has always looked further afield, drawing inspiration from other cultures and approaches, including the design communities in Japan and Northern Europe. He has also had a long and favourable relationship with the US, a country he explored in a 1972 road trip after his participation in a MoMA exhibition on the Italian design scene (see W*199).

In the late 1980s, Bellini was a pioneering editor of Domus at a time of a great renaissance in Italian product design and architecture, and his profile was buoyed by a 1987 MoMA retrospective. His career has also spanned social and technological change, but he has never lost sight of the emotional component of design. ‘Whenever we design something we look for beauty – it’s a very delicate thing that connects you to the world through your senses. Beauty is a way of communicating meaning – something that connects with you and moves you.’ Bellini is now an elder statesman of modern design, but his work continues to surprise and delight.

INFORMATION

‘Italian Beauty’, curated by Deyan Sudjic, is on view until 19 March. For more information, visit the Milan Triennale website

Trust Dimore Studio's Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran to take the simple catalogue and transform it into a veritable work of art. Eschewing the simply printed, the easy to post or the heavy on information (and light on inspiration) commonly employed by other furniture or textile brands, the Italian duo have applied their spellbinding approach to create Progetto Non Finito: A catalogue raisonné of unique pieces designed by Dimore Studio.

The exquisite tome reads more like an anthology than a catalogue, gathering the studio's many projects throughout the years (from storage units to seating options, tables, lamps, rugs and more), all captured by photographer Andrea Ferrari in the characteristic Dimore way; part haunted elegance, part decadent antique, wholly modern and refined.

A foreword by Paola Moretti introduces the contents, explaining the roots and essence of Progetto Non Finito: 'Sculptures that become living objects, inspired by modern art and references from the past, single pieces suitable to juxtapose alongside empty spaces with a sense of history.'

Four chapters follow. 'The Silent House' is peppered with quotes from Giò Ponti, Le Corbusier and Amélie Nothomb; 'Pregotto Tessuti' summarises the textile works created to celebrate the studio's 10th anniversary; 'Progetto Palmador' gathers its prolific furniture designs; and a product index, which is made captivating by using white type on black paper, employs simple sketches to show dimensions.

Beyond serving as an archive of its previous work, the compilation goes some way into unravelling Dimore's ideology. 'A modern piece of furniture can fit in well in a historical palace and face a piece of art. It is not a simple matter of matching old and new, but visualising the space in its entirety,' the designers offer up humbly – as if it were quite that simple.

Like the furniture and interiors they create, every last detail has been carefully considered. The cover, for example, is understated yet polished; a heavy, pale grey mount board adorned with three debossed geometric shapes in a medley of foils (metallic gold and silver, and a matte black).

Playful inserts of different sizes and alignment create divisions within the book itself. In 'The Silent House', for example, the smaller sheets present totemic quotes from designers who have inspired and influenced the Milanese duo, while in 'Pregotto Tessuti' the inserts create a page-turning game of contrasting patterns, die-cut shapes providing windows into other designs. Different paper types – including Artic Paper Munken Lynx, Fedrigoni Sirio Ultra Black and GMund Cotton New Grey – add pace and tactility, two principles that are key to the duo's work. As they so succinctly put it: 'What is the point of surfaces that don't thrill your fingers?'

INFORMATION

Photography: Michael Ainscough

Italian furniture company Molteni&C Dada has just recently opened two new showrooms in Tehran and Vancouver.

The Tehran showroom in the centre of the embassy district has been completely renovated to present the collections over a surface area of approximately 1,000 sq m, including an inner garden and a space reserved for art exhibitions. Former house of the Belgian Embassy, the first floor hosts a full range of day and night-time collections by Molteni&C Dada.

For the perfect living room situation, Dante Bonuccelli’s '505 Pass-Word' bookshelves and multimedia can be successfully combined with sofas and armchairs from Studio Hannes Wettstein’s Reversi XL series and with Rodolfo Dordoni’s 'Chelsea' chair; whilst 'Where' and 'Filigree' tables, teamed with 'Who' chairs, all by Dordoni, create a warm atmosphere for the dining room area.

The flagship store also features Molteni&C’s iconic Gio Ponti Collection, and the second floor hosts Dada designs. Dada’s range of kitchens is vast, and offers the perfect contemporary solution for anyone looking for a change. 'Hi-Line 6' by Ferruccio Laviani, 'INDADA' by Nicola Gallizia, and 'Vela' and 'Trim' by Dante Bonuccelli are amongst the models offered at the flagship store.

With these two openings, Molteni&C Dada take its 'Italian way of living' approach to two different ends of the world, expanding its influence on the international design market.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit Molteni&C Dada’s website

ADDRESS

82 Fereshteh
Tehran
Iran

1706 West 1st Avenue
BC V6J 0E4
Vancouver

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The Mandarin Oriental recently added to its Milan outpost with a striking duet of Speciality Suites dedicated to two of the city’s design maestros: Giò Ponti and Piero Fornasetti. Italian studio Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Partners – the original firm behind the hotel – were once again called on to bring these legends to life in the pair of generously sized suites.

The Premier Suite is a sophisticated affair paying tribute to midcentury master Ponti and his peers. Here, warm swathes of black walnut panelling form the backdrop to a Sarfatti chandelier, Citterio’s ‘Simpliciter’ sofa, Mangiaretti’s marvelous marble ‘Eros’ table, as well as an original console table by Ponti himself. The navy blue palette is carried through to the bedroom, complementing the muted cream walls and lush textiles.

The Milano Suite, meanwhile, takes a more whimsical turn, as soaring ceilings give way to Piero Fornasetti’s surrealist wallpaper murals. The lounge area plays hosts to Fornasetti’s ‘Guscio’ sofa and ‘Boss’ armchair, anchored by his ‘Fly’ coffee table, while in the dining area an arrangement of ornate mirrors, a Venetian trumeau, and the designer’s memorable ‘Capitello’ chairs and ‘Ultime Notizie’ table completes the fanciful suite. As for which of these fine suites we’d rather check into? Perhaps it’s a decision better left to a toss of a coin.

ADDRESS

Via Andegari, 9

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This week, international auction house Phillips is staging a handful of star-studded sales in London's Berkeley Square.

As well as the imminent 'Time for Design' auction, set to raise money for Kensington's relocated Design Museum, Phillips is presenting a sale focusing on 'Modern Masters', along with a day auction simply entitled 'Design'.

The 'Modern Masters' catalogue reads like an impeccably curated design text book, with key pieces from Alberto Giacometti, Pierre Jeanneret and Marcel Coard going under the hammer, including everything from benches and rugs to chess-sets. Wallpaper* are particularly intrigued by the rare Pietro Chiesa globe ceiling light, which is close in form and style to a renowned piece the art-deco master created for the Cosulich Shipping Company of Trieste. Produced by Fontana Arte in the 1930s, the hand-blown glass lamp swings in at a cool estimate of £20,000. 

If 'Modern Masters' reads like a history book, the 'Design' catalogue is a maker's bible. Among clear standouts by Jean Prouvé, Ettore Sottsass and Gio Ponti, a quirky highlight is the range of venetian, hand-blown glass vases from the ever-collectable Japanese designer Yoichi Ohira. We love the aubergine-shaped 'Zucca in avorio con fili rossi' vase, with its polished inciso surface and hand-blown glass cane detail, expected to attract bids in excess of £15,000.

As if all this high-end gavel-action wasn't enough, Phillips is also pioneering a new online bidding system, paired with online auction house Invaluable.com. Launching today at their 'Evening and Day Exhibitions' sale in New York, the scheme allows Invaluable buyers from over 200 countries to access real-time bids in Phillips’ upcoming sales, both on the site and through the mobile app.

'We are pleased to extend the reach of our auction sales globally through the Invaluable marketplace and its discerning buyers,' says Megan Newcome, director of Phillips digital strategy. 'Collectors are increasingly engaging with the art world online and this initiative is one more step in establishing Phillips as an international leader in auctions and innovation.'

INFORMATION
’Modern Masters’ takes place on 27 April; ’Design’ on 28 April. For more information, visit the Phillips website

Photography courtesy Phillips

Unlike the fields of graphic design, product design and architecture, there are very few or almost no critical opportunities for reviewing and reflecting upon the discipline of interior architecture – a strange situation when you consider the huge influence and direct impact that architectural interiors have on our everyday lives. 

It was when observing this anomaly, and the fact that the most recent and significant exhibitions dedicated to interior architecture took place over 30 years ago, that architect Beppe Finessi came up with the idea for new exhibition, 'Rooms: Novel Living Concepts' now open at Milan’s Triennale.

The exhibition begins by providing a little historical context – an overview of great interiors through the ages from the 1920s to the present day, by Italian masters such as Gio Ponti, Franco Albini and Ettore Sottsass – with a layout that Finessi likens to as a ‘three-dimensional encyclopedia’. From here, visitors are invited to experience a series of experimental interiors created by ten of Italy’s greatest architecture and design studios, including Fabio Novembre, Alessandro Mendini, Umberto Riva and Elisabetta Terragni. 

Designed to convey each designer’s unique philosophy, the room sets are presented with insightful statements provided by each. ‘For a long time, forever in fact, I have felt as though I were living shut inside a prison. Serving a life sentence for the crime of ornamentation,’ writes Alessandro Mendini in the introduction to his optical interior, which is made from bold black and white planks of ABET Laminate – his all time favourite material.

Elsewhere, Fabio Novembre invites us into his dark, scarlet leather-lined room that takes the shape of a hollow human head. Clad in mirrors on the outside, visitors enter through the mouth, where two golden vestal virgins stand sentry, before reclining on the sofa inside and listening to ‘a stream of consciousness’ played out in a male voice over speakers. ‘The visitor finds himself inside himself, looking at himself from within,’ explains Novembre of the surreal experience. 

Other highlights include Umberto Riva’s 16-metre-square 'La Petite Chambre', a ‘respectful yet critical’ response to Corbusier’s Cabanon with practical tweaks that include moving the WC away from the bed and into an independent unit. Realised in birch and clad in cedar wood shingles, the Milanese chambre serves as a reflection on the amount of space a person effectively needs.

An undoubted highlight of the museum's XXI International Exhibition programme, 'Rooms: Novel Living Concepts' runs at La Triennale di Milano until 12 September.

INFORMATION

'Rooms: Novel Living Concepts' is on view until 12 September. For more information, visit the Triennale website.

Photography courtesy Andrea Martiradonna

PAD, the unofficial sister event to Frieze Art Fair, opened this week for its annual gallery gathering in London's Berkeley Square. This year, the Mayfair location factored in more high design than its antique-heavy preceding years, celebrating an exquisite mix of 20th century and contemporary works.

The usual flurry of clean cream and light wood decorated stands were given a run for their money by interior design dame Rose Uniacke. The London-based gallery displayed Scandinavian furniture including Hans Wegner and Mogens Voltelen's seating against a dramatic blue backdrop and darkened, weathered floors.

Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery presented Wendell Castle’s ergonomic seating, entitled ‘Veiled in a Dream’. Produced in the gallery's new research hub, the bronze furniture reflects the American artist's boldly sculptural vision fused with humour.

French designer Hervé Van der Straeten displayed his new abstract origami furniture pieces, inspired by spaceships and flowers, and German photography gallery Daniel Blau calmed the tone with a display of exhilarating NASA photographs, taken from space missions in the 1960s and 70.

Elsewhere, Gallery Fumi collaborated with I Vassalletti’s Francesco Perini, who divided their set up with an artistic patterned wooden screen that complimented the organic works (which included an LDF favourite in Max Lamb’s 'My Grandfather's Tree' chair).

It was New York’s Friedman Benda gallery who exhibited perhaps the biggest highlight of the show – Paul Cocksedge’s 'Freeze’ desk. The futuristic, metallic model contained a conceptual line up of copper, silver and gold panels on the tabletop; by being quite so reflective, you couldn't help but stare.

INFORMATION

PAD London is on view until 18 October

ADDRESS

PAD
Berkeley Square
London, W1

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The location of ME by Meliá’s new luxury lifestyle hotel in Milan, is by no means a fluke. Conveniently positioned on Brera’s Piazza della Repubblica at the edge of the city’s fashion and design district, the property is steadily drawing in the fashion crowd it set out to court. Originally designed by late architect Aldo Rossi the building – the former l’Hotel Duca di Milano - was characterised by its large Carrara marble columns, green Mergano stone and an expansive windows. Now, it’s just as noteworthy for its reworked interiors by local outfit Mortini’s Studio, who have provided a balanced mix of traditional and contemporary Italian design. This is best exemplified in the 132 guests rooms; each a serene medley of muted tones — soft greys, golden beiges and creamy taupes — unified by luxe textures. Room and public spaces are bound together with furniture designed by an Italian dream team of Gio Ponti and Luca Meda in collaboration with Rossi, which sit side by side with lamps by industrial designer Achille Castiglioni and bespoke art by local artisans and fashion photographer Alberto Van Stokkum. Driving the property’s popularity with both visiting and local fashion crowds is Italy’s first outpost of STK steak restaurant, and the piece de resistance: the Radio Rooftop Bar, offering tapas and cocktails against awe-inspiring panoramas of the city, and premium views of new architecture in the nearby Garibaldi district.

ADDRESS

Piazza della Repubblica 13

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When we shot our 'Super Furry' story back in 2007 (W* 102), we marvelled at Italian architect Gio Ponti's skilful design for the iconic 'Beetle under the leaf' house, whose carefully curated interiors contain part of the owner's extraordinary art collection.

The playful residence, designed by Ponti in 1964, belongs to famed collector Giobatta Meneguzzo, who took up Ponti on his offer to work on the magnificent house for free, provided he would invest in the experimental design. Located in the village of Malo, in Northern Italy's Vicenza, the incredible beetle-shaped, white-tiled house (also known as 'Lo Scarabeo sotto la Foglia') was finished in 1969, complete with its distinctive fur-clad staircase and interiors by designer Nanda Vigo.

Fast-forward 45 years, and Sotheby's is revisiting the project, orchestrating an exciting auction of a selection of works of art from the house and Meneguzzo's collection - as part of its autumn Italian Sale. Taking place on 17 October, the auction will include significant works by the likes of Enrico Castellani and Lucio Fontana. Meneguzzo - also behind the Museum Casabianca - is known for his dedication to post-war and contemporary art.

'I have been passionate about collecting since I was child; I still remember insisting that my mother take a painting called "Flight into Egypt", made by a relative of ours, back to the house; I still have it in my home now,' says the collector. 'Over the years, thanks to my profession, I came into close contact with the art world. For me, these years were an exciting journey, for the diverse relationships between artists, critics and gallerists.' It was these relationships that inspired Meneguzzo to build his enviable collection, part of which lines the walls of Lo Scarabeo. 
 
The artworks taken from the house, for the auction, are associated with the post-war Zero Group movement. This is the first time Sotheby's have bought a single-owner collection of the specific style since 2010, and this auction will also include Castellani's monumental 'Superficie Bianca', 1967, which was created site-specifically for Lo Scarabeo.

Alex Branczik, head of contemporary art at Sotheby's, explains: 'The Meneguzzo collection is unique. What's so exceptional about the works from Lo Scarabeo is that the collector worked directly with many of the greatest artists of post-war Italy, who, in some cases, created works specifically for the house. Gio Ponti, alongside artists like Castellani, Fontana and Bonalumi, were hugely influential in redefining European art and architecture in the 1950s and 1960s, so the house and its collection capture this key moment in time.'

Thanks to Meneguzzo, Lo Scarabeo and its precious contents are an exceptional convergence of art and architecture. 'I think they [art and architecture] are parallel worlds that sometimes get closer without touching, fundamentally linked to the sensitivity between architect and artist,' says Meneguzzo. 'The artist's choices are aesthetic, the architect's are to do with shape and mass, so they can talk to each other but not assimilate one another.'

ADDRESS

34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA UK

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