'I PELLEGRINI', A VASE, DESIGNED BY GIO PONTI

Executed by Richard Ginori in 1985, polychrome enamelled porcelain. It is part of a numbered series that was created to celebrate Doccia’s factory’s 250th anniversary.
Ginori 1735-1985, N° 251, Serie numerata per il 250° Anniversario della Manifattura di Doccia

19 cm. high, 15,5 cm. Diameter.

Gio Ponti (Italian, 1891–1979) was an important architect, industrial and furniture designer, artist, and publisher, associated with the development of modern architecture and modern industrial design in Italy. Born in Milan, Ponti studied architecture at the Polytechnic University there. After serving in the army during World War I, he graduated in 1921. In 1923, Ponti entered into a partnership with Mino Fiocchi and Emilio Lancia, and was influenced by the neoclassical Novecento Italiano movement. In 1928, he established the Domus magazine, which focused on architecture, art, and design, and is still being published today.

During the late 1920s, Ponti built houses in Milan and Paris, including the domuses, which looked like typical Milanese homes from the outside, but had innovative interiors, with flexible spaces and modular furniture. Also, during this time, he curated the Biennale della Arti Decorativa, in Monza and Milan, where he was appointed to the executive committee of the fifth Milan Triennale. His best-known architectural work, the Pirelli Building, Milan (1955–59, with Pier Luigi Nervi and others), is notable for its hexagonal plan. Other important works include a cathedral (1971) in Taranto, Italy, and the Bijenkorf shopping centre (1967) in Eindhoven, Neth. Ponti believed that, as an architect, it was his responsibility to create buildings that fused form and function.
Simultaneously with his architecture, Ponti was active in painting, the graphic arts, design for motion pictures and the theatre—including costumes and scenery for Milan’s La Scala opera—and interior design. Gio Ponti was the artistic director of the Ginori Manifattura from 1923 to 1933, and in 1926 many designs took shape in his irrepressible imagination.