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Gio Ponti
"Enchantment — a useless thing, but as indispensable as bread."
Giovanni "Gio" Ponti (18 November 1891 – 16 September 1979) was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, and publisher. Writing in the New York Times, Alice Rawsthorn summarizes his illustrious career as follows:
“As a designer, Gio Ponti worked for 120 companies. As an architect, he built in 13 countries. As a magazine editor, he produced 560 issues and wrote at least one article for each one. As an academic, he lectured in 24 countries. He also found time to dictate some 2, 500 letters and draw 2, 000 illustrated letters, as well as for painting and poetry.
Ponti, who died in 1979 at the age of 87, emerged as one of the most influential Italian architects and designers of the 20th century, whose Pirelli Tower still soars above his native Milan. Summing him up has always been tricky. Not only was he extraordinarily prolific, his work was unusually eclectic, reflecting the diverse, often conflicting, styles and ideologies with which he experimented over the years….
Like so many of the maestri, or masters, who established Italy as a global design center in the mid-20th century, Ponti originally trained as an architect and entered industrial design by developing products for an Italian company. His employer was Richard Ginori, an 18th-century ceramics manufacturer based near Florence. During the 1920s and ’30s, Ponti collaborated with its artisans to develop intricate, beautifully crafted ceramics, sumptuously decorated, often in the neoclassical style…
Important though Ponti was as a practicing designer and architect, he was equally if not more so as a cultural catalyst who celebrated other designers’ work and defined the terms of the design debate as an editor, writer and teacher. ”
Lights Designed by Gio Ponti
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