Gio Ponti was an architect and designer who didn’t shy away from designing anything. He was born in Milan in 1891 and earned a degree in architecture after having served his country in WWI. His first job after graduating was as artistic director at an Italian ceramics company before starting to work as an architect. Ponti didn’t see architecture as only creating the building itself. He also made the interior design, furniture, lighting and even ceramics, glassware and cutlery. You could live your life totally immersed in Gio Ponti’s design. The furniture was simply a part of the concept of the interior of the buildings he created and without the furniture the building wouldn’t be complete. 

On Via Dezza in Milano he designed the building that became the home for  himself his wife and four kids. The apartment flooded with sunlight, unlike most Milanese apartments at that time, and here he surrounded himself with his own furniture. His home was a continuous flow of visiting artists, painters and critics and the life, according to one of his daughters, was very informal. They, for instance, never really sat at a dinner table but rather had dinner sitting in a sofa or an armchair. 

The D.153.1 is one of the pieces of furniture Gio Ponti designed for his house on Via Dezza in Milan in 1953. In the Italian architecture and design magazine Domus, that Gio Ponti founded in 1928, he wrote about the armchair that it “combines strict lines with exceptionally restful comfort. it stands out immediately for its distinctive shape and particularly its extended profile, which depicts a desire to break away from bourgeois postures”.

To experience how it is to live in the Gio Ponti universe the easiest way is to check into the Parco dei Principi Hotel in Sorrento, Italy. The hotel, built in 1962, is sitting on a cliff overlooking the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. It is entirely designed by Mr Ponti, from the building itself to the furniture, bar, tiles, light fixtures and even the pool. And it is amazing. 

Product information

The size 40x50 cm (approx 16x20”) are signed and printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Bright White 310g archival paper and are sold in a limited edition of 50 prints.

The size 30x40 cm (approx 12x16”) are printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Studio Enhanced 210g archival paper.