‘Ponti would have liked to have made
furniture like this widely available’
From far left, one of
Ponti’s original drawings
for the table; a sketch
of the auditorium; and
an archive photograph
of the meeting spaceyellow with streaks of green, and dark blue’. Its walls
were ‘punched with luminous-colored glass block’, and
its furniture ‘neo-art-nouveau, [with] as many joints as
a praying mantis’. The table, at 3.6m, was long enough
to comfortably it ten people. Originally made of solid
ash, with curving splayed legs like lying buttresses, it
held an impressive tabletop tapered at either end that
felt years ahead of its time.
The Time & Life auditorium was met initially with
breathless regard, but gradually fell out of favour.
As time went on and styles evolved, the space was
locked up. It was unceremoniously gutted in 1981 and
its pieces sold of at international auctions. Happily,
60 years later, a piece of this crown jewel has been
revived for a wider audience.
Launching at Salone del Mobile, the ‘D.859.1’ table
is the latest project to emerge from Italian furniture
giant Molteni & C’s ten-year exclusive licence with the
Gio Ponti Archives. The collaboration began in 2010
during a visit by Carlo Molteni, the company’s
president, to the studio of photographer Paolo Rosselli,
Ponti’s grandson. A bookcase caught the furniture
magnate’s eye. ‘He was immediately drawn to it,’ says
Francesca Molteni, Carlo’s daughter and the company’s
director of special projects. ‘He didn’t immediately
know it was by Ponti, but he knew there was something
special about it. It turned out to be a piece that had
never been widely produced.’
The bookcase in question was the ‘D.357.1’, designed
for Ponti’s family home on Milan’s via Dezza. Like
much of Ponti’s furniture, it was a one-of piece created
only for that particular space. Astounded that a majordesign by one of the greatest midcentury architects
could live hidden for years, Carlo hatched a plan to let
Ponti’s forgotten gems see the light of day.
‘We did a lot of research with the Gio Ponti
Archives,’ says Francesca. ‘We found pieces that hadn’t
been produced industrially, or had just been produced
for one-of projects.’ Following the green light from
Ponti’s heirs, Molteni & C got to work recreating
and preserving the designer’s lesser-known works.
‘We need to sustain the strong legacy of Italian
masters,’ explains Francesca.
Salvatore Licitra, another of Ponti’s grandsons,
oversees the archive and works with Francesca to
decide which pieces will go into production. Having
already released pieces including an armchair from
the Ponti-designed Villa Planchart in Caracas and
a side table from Ponti’s via Dezza home, both parties
agreed it was time to add a showstopper table.
The ‘D.859.1’ table hadn’t had much of a life beyond
the Time & Life building. Molteni & C had to rely
on the vast trove of technical drawings in Ponti’s
archive to recreate it.
‘Ponti invented furniture like this because he
would have liked to have made it widely available,’
says Licitra, ‘but the industry wasn’t sophisticated
enough to produce such pieces.’ The Architectural Forum
review describes the curves of Ponti’s furniture as
‘beyond the capacity of American mechanical
civilization’. Though he often worked with American
company Singer, more complicated designs, including
the ‘D.859.1’ table, were made by artisans in Italy.
Now, with the advent of machines capable of shaping
wood into Ponti’s luid lines, Molteni & C is able
to produce the table on a larger scale. ‘He was always
ahead of his time’, says Licitra. ∂
The ‘D.859.1’ table is at the Molteni & C booth,
17-22 April, Hall 20, Fuorisalone, Milan, molteni.itSalone del Mobile
204 ∑