A new collection of eight pieces selected from the master’s vast archive, “beautiful and impossible objects, suitable only for flights of fancy”
Molteni&C presents its very first collection of objects designed by Gio Ponti: eight pieces selected from the master’s vast archive, which includes over 250 design objects.
These are true microcosms of his architectural ideas, distinguished by deep craftsmanship and design value. Each piece – whether sculptural or functional – reflects the interplay of geometry and the reimagining of space that defined his work.
The collection embodies the timelessness that Ponti aspired to and celebrates the relevance of his work in contemporary living. Viewing buildings as living, dynamic environments shaped around their inhabitants, he shifted the paradigm from monumental architecture to spaces designed on a human scale. As Salvatore Licitra, Ponti’s grandson and curator of the Gio Ponti Archives, states, these are “beautiful and impossible objects, suitable only for flights of fancy—an invitation to live and to enjoy beauty.” These are not mere furnishings, but poetic and functional tools that turn everyday life into a stage for imagination, blending art, memory, and invention. They embody a visionary beauty—suspended between form and function, past and future—capable of redefining domestic space with freedom and lightness.
With the agreement signed with the Gio Ponti heirs, granting Molteni&C worldwide exclusive rights to reissue and commercialize all furnishings designed by Gio Ponti—except for those already licensed to other manufacturers—in 2012 the company launched an important program to shed new light on the remarkable body of research carried out by the great 20th-century master over more than 50 years of activity across architecture, design, applied arts, and publishing.
The reissue project led to the creation of a collection of furnishings—models originally conceived by Ponti as one-offs or in limited series—following an extensive process of research, selection, and study of the prototypes.
The collection, developed in collaboration with the Gio Ponti Archives and under the artistic direction of Studio Cerri & Associati, includes furniture and accessories designed by Gio Ponti between 1935 and the 1970s, now part of the Molteni&C Heritage Collection.
“As you journey through sixty years of Gio Ponti’s creativity, it may happen that the seemingly chaotic, kaleidoscopic wealth of his creative universe suddenly reveals itself as a balanced and clear whole, where every element responds to a single vision“, says Salvatore Licitra, Gio Ponti’s grandson and founder of the Gio Ponti Archives. “Everything falls into place, and the seductive harmony of the maestro’s vision emerges. It is a vast landscape which embraces architecture, interiors, façades, materials, decor, colours, fabrics, ceramics, metals, wood, glass.
Within this harmonious tableau, we will not find what are conventionally called “decorative accessories” in his homes, on shelves, in bookcases, at the centre of the table, or crowded by the window. Rather, we’ll find objects that promote a new way of life, vibrant domestic sentinels, tools to be kept close at hand, ready to set the stage for the theatre of imagination, across space and time. These are objects that are both beautiful and impossible.
