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Iconic
Iconic – Gio Ponti
ICONIC • Tous les mois, Goodmoods enquête sur les œuvres d’un designer iconique, l’histoire de leur création, les dessous de leur fabrication. Des objets emblématiques à chiner sur leboncoin.
Parmi les figures italiennes qui ont marqué la création d’après-guerre, Gio Ponti a probablement eu le curriculum vitae le plus kaléidoscopique : artiste, designer, journaliste, professeur, penseur, chercheur… En soixante ans de carrière, l’Italien s’est essayé à tous les arts sans jamais en négliger un seul.
L’architecture du gratte-ciel Pirelli c’est lui, l’intérieur de l’Ange Volant et de la Villa Planchart lui aussi, l’édition de la revue Domus, encore lui. La création de la chaise 699 Superleggera ? Toujours lui. Toute sa vie, Gio Ponti a œuvré pour mettre le drapeau transalpin sur le devant de la scène en usant d’ingéniosité et de créativité. Sa marque de fabrique ? L’ornement, qu’il invoque avec brio dans chacune de ses œuvres. Retour sur les plus Iconic.
AN INTERIOR : THE VILLA PLANCHART
"Demand joyful homes, perfect for comforting your life, with beautiful architecture, serene, bright, clear, colorful and pure". No sooner said than done. In 1957, Gio Ponti signed a total work of art on the hills of San Roman in Caracas: the Villa Planchart. The result of an epistolary exchange of over 700 letters between the owners, art collectors and the Italian architect. Sublimated by ceramic, wood and aluminum inlays and illuminated by floor-to-ceiling skylights, the house is an ode to light and fantasy.
An icon: the Superleggera chair
At the same time as he was building the future emblematic Pirelli Tower, Gio Ponti sketched the first designs for the 664 Leggera. A true perfectionist, he decided to improve the object by taking inspiration from another emblematic chair of his country: the Chiavari. The result? In 1957, a piece as light as it is robust was born: the 699 Superleggera. With its 1.7 kilos, its ash wood and its seat in woven rush cane, the iconic chair stands out from the imposing lines of the time.
AN ARCHITECTURE: THE GRAN MADRE DI DIO
Less famous but just as impressive: The Gran Madre di Dio. With this sacred monument built in the 1970s, Ponti reinterprets the essentiality of the Romanesque churches of Puglia. A single material predominates on the exterior and interior: white reinforced concrete. The latter, pierced by square shapes all along the walls, bathes the pious room in an infinite light. The geometric shapes of the exterior façade add a decorative touch to this picturesque picture.
A MEDIUM: CERAMICS
From his beginning, Gio Ponti enamels this medium. From the panels of the Pirelli skyscraper to the neo-classical collections of the great Richard Ginori (now Ginori 1735) and the "Ponti Blue" collection designed for the Parco Dei Principi hotel in Naples, he has a special relationship with ceramics and uses them as a means of aesthetic research.
