Gio Ponti - The godfather of Italian design

The entire output of the Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti (1891-1979) is characterised by a strong eclecticism.

After his beginnings with ceramics and majolica at the First International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Monza, he devoted himself to furniture and interior design, designing everything from modest private residences to imposing buildings, schools and offices. He had a particular interest in living spaces and was constantly searching for new solutions.

Ponti's colourful, light-hearted and elegant elements were designed to bestow optimism. Founder and editor of Domus magazine for almost his entire life, he never stopped reinventing and modelling his style.

This new retrospective offers an introduction to the Milanese artist's creative process, exploring the different stages of his career in a comprehensive overview. "Pure architecture is a crystal. When purity is achieved, architecture is crystalline: magical, complete, exclusive, self-sufficient, immaculate, absolute, definitive, like a crystal. It could be a cube, a rectangular block, a pyramid, an obelisk, or a tower: all upright and finished forms.

Architecture shuns incomplete forms... Architecture has a beginning and an end. Architecture stands upright." (Gio Ponti).