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“An Italian ship is a piece of Italy itself – it should represent the loftiest and most prestigious aspects of Italian good taste, culture, artistic flair and craftsmanship. It is not just a means of transport for tourism in Italy, but something much greater. It should be... a fascinating showcase of the cultural, civil and human atmosphere of our country. Tourism has to learn about Italy on board.”
So said Italian architect, designer and publisher Gio Ponti in the Corriere della Sera newspaper on 21 March 1950, in an article entitled ‘Foreigners need to learn about Italy on board our ships’. The article could be considered a manifesto on the idea of “Italianness”, which, since 1923, had underpinned Ponti’s conviction of Italy’s pre-eminence in art and craftsmanship. It was no coincidence that his recurring aphorism – “It’s enough just to be Italian” – was exemplified in the editorial, titled ‘La casa all’italiana’ (The Italian House), with which he launched the first issue of Domus magazine in 1928.
In his designs for the interiors of prestigious transatlantic liners (Giulio Cesare, Andrea Doria, Conte Biancamano, Conte Grande, etc), Ponti had conceived of them as floating homes, even small towns, riding the waves with common spaces such as dining rooms, ballrooms and entertainment rooms. He collaborated on these with his artist friends – from Lucio Fontana, Salvatore Fiume, Achille Funi and Massimo Campigli to artisans such as Piero Fornasetti and Guido Gambone – so that they could testify, with the presence of their work, to the vivacity of Italian culture.
He collaborated on these with his artist friends – from Lucio Fontana, Salvatore Fiume, Achille Funi and Massimo Campigli to artisans such as Piero Fornasetti and Guido Gambone.
It would be too restrictive to trace today’s idea of “made in Italy” back to this obsession of his – for Ponti, the expression of Italian creativity was not a trademark and certainly not a brand, but the direct consequence of the Italian character (and history) that coincided with the very notion of civility/civilisation. Ponti had clearly stated as much in his direction of the fifth Milan Triennale in 1933, under the slogan “Arte e Civiltà” (Art and Civilisation). He had reiterated the notion in Stile magazine in relation to the tragedy of the post-war period (“Craftsmanship and artistic industries are typical and traditional resources. We must make the most of all these resources”). And he was to reinforce it yet again in the following decade with a myriad of schemes that included not only the popularisation of the “stile Italiano” (Italian style) in Domus, but in his partnerships with design companies such as M. Singer & Sons, Altamira and Knoll International in the US, as well as Nordiska Kompaniet in Sweden, Christofle in France and Krupp in Germany.
But above all, Ponti considered his work as a direct testimony to Italy’s
creative spirit – Villa Planchart in Caracas was immediately called
“Villa Fiorentina”, while the Italian Cultural Institute in the Swedish capital became “a little Italy in Stockholm”. Both these buildings, fortunately almost unchanged from their original plans, were designed according to the spirit of a “total work of art” – not simple furnishing containers, but meticulously conceived in every single detail. In particular, in Caracas, Ponti brought in an incredible variety of materials and objects (including works of art) that were to represent the wealth of Italian ingenuity and the precision of the country’s industrial concerns.
His fortune overseas – which, in those two happy decades of the 1950s and 60s, stretched from the Americas and Europe (the De Bijenkorf department stores in Eindhoven, Holland) to the Middle East (Villa Namazee in Tehran, Iran, and the government office building in Baghdad, Iraq) and the Far East (administrative buildings in Islamabad, Pakistan, and in Hong Kong the Villa for Daniel Koo and the facade of the Shui- Hing department stores) – contributed to focusing international attention on Italy, bringing Italian design under the spotlight. Since then, this has been acknowledged worldwide as the most effective way of spreading the taste and culture associated with the Italian way of life.
In 1947 Gio Ponti designed a “bedroom for a bachelor”, presented first at the Galleria del Sagrato, then at the RIMA - Riunione Italiana Mostre per l’Arredamento - at the Triennale, both in Milan, and finally at the XVI International Exhibition in Barcelona in ‘48. Among the furnishings that make up the room, there is also a small console/ writing desk, model D.847.1, made entirely of national walnut with brass tips.
The style of all the furniture in the room is modern, sleek, almost aerial. In particular, the desk is characterised by a top with curved ends, resembling an aeroplane wing, and a small drawer underneath with a rounded front - a real innovation, which was to become a hallmark of many Ponti products in the following years. More than 70 years after its original design, the D.847.1 console table is reborn thanks to the Heritage Collection reissue project by Molteni&C, in collaboration with the Gio Ponti Archives.
Designed in 1954, the project name, Round D.154.5, comes from the rounded shape of the seat and backrests, also referred to as the ‘soap bar’. It has very modern shapes, almost out of this world, which had never been thought of before. Characterized by avantgarde materials and technologies for that time, such as the Vipla (a plastic material that resembles leather) for the upholstery, curved plywood to join the backrest and seat, and metal feet with non-slip tips that are easy to assemble.
Round D.154.5 is also referred to as ‘Otto Pezzi’ (Eight Pieces) in the Ponti/Fornaroli/ Rosselli study. In fact, there are eight pieces that make up the chair: backrest, seat, two curved plywood elements and four legs, which screw into the seat to hold the whole thing together. A totally new product, an industrial design, thought for a world where we talk about assembly, ease of production and packaging, with the intention nof minimising bulk and transport. More than 60 years after the original idea, Round D.154.5 was reborn thanks to the Heritage Collection reissue project by Molteni&C, in collaboration with the Gio Ponti Archives.
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