Wallpaper 5

MILAN

PREVIEW

2018

Archive images: courtesy of Gio Ponti Archives. Table image: courtesy of Molteni & C

Gio Ponti’s ‘D.859.1’ table was originally designed to

sit atop a Manhattan skyscraper. It was the centrepiece

of the Milanese master’s most extensive project in

New York: an auditorium perched on the eighth-loor

terrace of Harrison & Abramovitz’s Time & Life

Building. When it irst opened its doors in 1959, Ponti’s

auditorium was the ultimate gathering place for the

sharply suited businessman. Indeed, it was intended

to woo advertisers and facilitate high-powered business

meetings for Henry Luce’s Time Inc, then at the apex

of a mighty media industry. Hoping to beef up his

proile in the Big Apple, Ponti had rained down on

that little space all the lustre of Italian luxury he

could muster.

A 1960 issue of Architectural Forum describes the

chapel-like space as bordering on the Baroque, its

loors ‘a grand lava low of marbleised sheet rubber in »

TIME’S

TA B L E

A Gio Ponti design created for a New York

icon has a happy landing in Milan

Clockwise from below, Ponti’s

reissued table, ‘D.859.1’; the

1959 auditorium on the terrace

of the Time & Life Building;

and a sketch of its interior

WRITER: LAURA MAY TODD

Salone del Mobile

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