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TASCHEN

Gio Ponti Art Edition

by Gio Ponti, 1948-49, 1954, 2021 — CHF 2’598.00
TASCHEN Gio Ponti Art Edition

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Gio Ponti Art Edition

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CHF 2’598.00 *
CHF 3’117.00 *
Limited stock - only 23 x in stock, delivery time 5-7 working days (country of delivery Switzerland)
3% advance payment discount*: CHF 2’520.06 (Save CHF 77.94)

* incl. 8,1% VAT, incl. shipping for orders over CHF 100 (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria)
In honour of the Italian architect, designer and visionary Gio Ponti, TASCHEN Verlag have published a limited Gio Ponti Art Edition, a fulsome Ponti monologue which is accompanied by the exclusive reproduction of the original square "Planchart Coffee Table" from 1954 and four art prints of sketches from the Ponti archive. Produced by Molteni&C for TASCHEN Verlag, the iconic Ponti coffee table - in the round shape also known as the Arlecchino coffee table - impresses under the glass top with its lattice structure, the colour combination of which changes depending on the perspective of the beholder. The Art Edition is uniquely limited and numbered to 1000 pieces.

Details

Product type Limited special edition consisting of a book, coffee table, 4 prints and a signed certificate
Dimensions Coffee table
Height: 39 cm
Width/Depth: 57 cm

Book
Height/Width: 36 cm

Art prints
Height/width: 40 cm
Colours Exclusive colour selection (Cadmium Yellow, Capri Blue and White) based on Ponti's original colour palette of the coffee table for the Villa Planchart from 1954
Material Coffee table:
Table top: hand-painted steel grille with glass top, clear glass
Legs: steel, copper colour

Art prints
Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper (Photo Rag Ultra Smooth 305 / m²)
Function & Properties Special limited edition

Book: numbered (Art Edition 1-1000, total circulation 5000)
Gio Ponti Art Edition. Salvatore Licitra, Stefano Casciani, Lisa Licitra Ponti, Brian Kish, Fabio Marino, Karl Kolbitz (Eds.)
Hardcover, 572 pages
Label in the form of a crystal (Ponti leitmotif)

Coffee table: handmade and numbered
Removable glass plate
With Gio Ponti Archives logo and TASCHEN logo

Art prints: numbered on the back
Ocean liner interior prints
Ponti drawings from the years 1948-49 (originals are kept in the CSAC/University of Parma)

Certificate: with the signature of Salvatore Licitra (curator and founder of the Gio Ponti Archives in Milan and grandson of Gio Ponti) and the manufacturer's emblem Molteni&C
Delivery includes Set of hardcover anthology Gio Ponti Art Edition incl. Multilingual booklet with foreword, introduction, essay (DE/EN/FR/IT) + numbered Planchart Coffee Table 2021 Edition + 4 numbered art prints in a folder + signed certificate
Pflege (Couchtisch) Glass
Properties:
Contact with harder material can cause scratches, therefore avoid contact with rough surfaces, grains of sand and sharp metals.
Cleaning:
Clean glass regularly with a damp, soft cloth. A household glass cleaner is recommended.

Steel
Maintenance:
You can freshen up chrome from time to time with an appropriate polish. You can achieve a special shine by polishing with a dry, soft cloth.
Cleaning:
Clean with lukewarm water and, if necessary, with a mild soap. A stainless steel cleaner helps with heavier soiling. Thoroughly wipe off all cleaning agents used. Never use harsh detergents. Use only soft cleaning cloths.
Certificates & Sustainability Set contains certificate with signature of Salvatore Licitra and manufacturer's emblem Molteni&C
Warranty 24 months

Designstory

Art Edition with Planchart coffee table, book and prints

Art Edition book detail

Design

The numbered TASCHEN Art Edition of 1,000 copies (No. 1-1000) comprises Gio Ponti Coffee Table Book with booklet, the exclusive reproduction of the Planchart Coffee Table in square format, a set of four numbered prints from Ponti's Ocean Liner studies and a certificate signed by Salvatore Licitra, Ponti's grandson and founder of the Ponti Archives.

The Planchart is an exclusive reproduction of the iconic lattice coffee table by Gio Ponti with a glass top. The table - designed by Ponti in 1954 as a square prototype for the Villa Planchart in Caracas - was later produced in a round shape as the Arlecchino table and has now been reissued for the first time by TASCHEN in its original shape. Based on the painterly approach of the De Stijl artists Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg, the surface of the table is based on a dynamic grid structure, the colour combination of which changes depending on the viewer's perspective. The colours of the re-edition were based on Ponti's original colour palette from the Gio Ponti archive exclusively for the TASCHEN Art Edition.

The extensive Ponti hardcover book published by Art Director Karl Kolbitz was created in close collaboration with Ponti's grandson Salvatore Licitra and contains texts by Stefano Casciani and Ponti's daughter Lisa Licitra Ponti. The anthology documents the development of Ponti with previously unpublished materials and is the most comprehensive presentation of his work to date.

The prints of the Ocean Liner studies are based on drawings by Ponti from 1948-49. Ponti produced these valuable works as part of a tender for the interior of two cruise ships. They testify to his idea of ​​creating two different rooms, each with a completely unique design for luxury cruises.

Production

Each book in the Art Edition from TASCHEN Verlag is numbered from 1 to 1000, with the individual number being fixed in the form of a sticker on the front of the book. This detail is something special as the sticker picks up on the typical crystal, Ponti's leitmotif . The book is in English, the multilingual supplement contains the main texts in German, French and Italian. Like the table and book, the prints are numbered, and the certificate is also signed by Ponti's grandson, Salvatore Licitra.

The Planchart Coffee Table is produced by Molteni&C exclusively in context of the Art Edition and in collaboration with the Ponti Archive. The legendary new edition of the table is numbered, has a discreet Gio Ponti Archives logo and a TASCHEN logo. Each table in the 2021 edition is handcrafted based on the design of the prototype from 1954. The characteristic steel grille is hand-painted in the colours cadmium yellow, capri blue and white, the steel legs are lacquered in copper colour.

Designer

“The most durable element is not wood, stone, steel or glass. The most permanent element in a building is art. Let's do something very beautiful with it. ”(Giovanni Ponti)

Designer, architect, initiator, artist - for Giovanni "Gio" Ponti there were no boundaries. Whether small everyday objects such as ceramics and dishes, furniture, stage sets or even impressive buildings - Ponti designed everything. As an absolute all-rounder, the universal designer advanced to become one of the most important players in Italian and international design.

Born in Milan in 1891 Gio Ponti finished his architecture studies in 1921 and initially established a reputation as designer of objects combining clear structures and decorative elements. In addition to an early specialisation in ceramics, Ponti also created floor coverings, textiles and lighting designs and regularly employing his leitmotif,: the crystal. An non-quadratic geometric form which also feature predominately in his architecture, inclduing in the floor plan of the Pirelli Tower in Milan , in the windows of the Hotel Parco die Principi in Rome or in facade sections in the church of San Francesco al Fopponini in Milan. Gio Ponti designed countless buildings around the globe and taught until 1961 as a professor at the architecture faculty of the Polytechnic in Milan. All of his designs are united by a special understanding of art, whether in the Superleggera chair or in the Pavoni coffee machine, and made Ponti known beyond the Italian borders. Ponti died on September 16, 1979 in Casa Ponti, Milan, a housing block he built in 1957.

Universal designer Gio Ponti

The original coffee table from 1954 in the main reception room of Villa Planchart, Caracas, Venezuela (1953-57), Foto: Antoine Baralhe

Historical Context

With his unconventional understanding of art, Gio Ponti was way ahead of his time. Ponti was initially among the Milanese neoclassicists who joined forces in the 1920s to form the Novecento Milanese, but then turned to Razionalismo and combined both styles. Ponti accompanied the 20th century up to Pop Art and is often declared as a signpost of modernism, who with his Pirelli skyscraper in Milan has created something previously non-existent, a new casualness among skyscrapers, streamlined with a floating roof and completely without supporting pillars of the office floors. In the post-war period, Italian design also received a new boost with Ponti. With the creation of the La Cornuta coffee machine, he realised an absolute design classic.

Ponti's magazine Domus, founded in 1928, was the most important architecture publication in the 1950s, through which the Planchart family from Venezuela also became aware of the designer and architect. For the industrialist Armando Planchart and his wife Anala, Ponti designed the villa on the hills in front of Caracas from 1954 to 1957, which he furnished down to the smallest detail. Furniture (including the lattice coffee table), floors and dishes come from Ponti's pen and have been preserved to this day.

Manufacturer

The Ponti monologue from TASCHEN Verlag

TASCHEN Verlag was founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne and publishes illustrated books from the fields of art, architecture, design, film, photography and lifestyle. The world market leader in the illustrated book sector became known, for example, with the limited edition of a large Helmut Newton illustrated book ("SUMO") and an even larger Muhammad Ali book ("GOAT") and also operates its own bookshops in major cities such as Berlin, London and Milan.

The table manufacturer, the Italian furniture company Molteni&C, looks back on a history dating back to the 1930s and continues to work with outstanding designers such as Gerard Van den Berg, Hannes Wettstein, Patricia Urquiola, Paola Navone together. For Molteni&C the focus is on innovative furniture solutions that combine the skills of a long tradition of craftsmanship with technological innovations that are useful but are not overemphasized in the design. The Molteni Group is one of the most important Italian furniture manufacturers and produces in a complete cycle from the selection of materials to the fine-tuning of the furniture. The group has three sub-companies, Molteni&C spa (home furniture), Unifor spa (office furniture) and Dada spa (kitchen furniture), which sell their furnishing solutions in Italy and worldwide.

More about 'Gio Ponti' in our journal

Lost Furniture Design Classics: The Gabriella Chair by Gio Ponti for Walter Ponti

..."Dear Architect" wrote Maria Chinaglia Ponti in 1967 to the architect, but no relation, Gio Ponti, "why don't you design us some modern furniture?... 1 An unsolicited request, from a company of whom he'd never heard, an architect of the status of a late 1960s Gio Ponti could have turned down, it wasn't as if a late 1960s Gio Ponti needed the commission; however, something about the letter from Maria Chinaglia Ponti interested, intrigued, Gio Ponti...

The Historia Supellexalis: "I" for Italy

...And thus under the benevolent rule of the Gio Ponti the House of Domus served very much as bridges between both the Stati and Popoli of the Italian commonwealth and between the Italian peninsula and the wider worlds... Thus the bridges the Gio Ponti once help construct and which carried Italian furniture design abroad, today allow that abroad to flow back into Italian furniture design, enable Italy's long established vernacular design practices to become infused with contemporary global ideas and positions and therefore affords furniture design in the commonwealth of Italy the opportunity to continue striding forward, to develop and evolve in the local global context in which the contemporary Italian Stati and Popoli find themselves; allows furniture design in Italy to develop itself ever anew while never interrupting its gentle swinging back and forth nor relieving it from its endemic, and some claim essential, existential, Razionalismo and Radicalismo...

TASCHEN Verlag presents Gio Ponti: A coffee table book that comes with its own coffee table

...In 1935 George Nelson opined that "the history of art in Italy presents the astonishing spectacle of a series of men who knew no boundaries between the arts"; a history, a tradition, Nelson saw continued into 1930s Italy through "the cheering example of Gio Ponti, who found early in life that no one profession was sufficient to use up his energy or exhaust his interests, and added others with the nonchalance of a small boy increasing his collection of marbles"... 1 A borderless, inexhaustible collection of marbles explored and discussed in the new Gio Ponti monograph from TASCHEN Verlag...

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for October 2018

..."Tutto Ponti, Gio Ponti archi-designer" at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France In his 1935 portrait of Gio Ponti George Nelson writes that Ponti "found early in life that no one profession was sufficient to use up his energy or exhaust his interests, and added others with the nonchalance of a small boy increasing his collection of marbles"1 The exhibition Tutto Ponti, Gio Ponti archi-designer promises some 400 objects which together sound like providing for a fulsome exploration of one of Italy's most influential 20th century architects, designers, ceramicists, painters, writers, educators, theorists, collectors of marbles... A graduate of Milan Polytechnic Gio Ponti first made a name for himself designing ceramics for his wife's family's Richard-Ginori Florentine porcelain factory, including winning a coveted Grand Prix at the 1925 l'’Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris; but quickly moved on to architecture, glass and furniture projects as well as organising exhibitions, co-founding the magazine Domus, writing, developing lighting designs, works of art, films and teaching at his alma mater...

All 'Gio Ponti' Posts

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