Both opening on May 6, two exhibits in Milan will celebrate one of
Italy’s most acclaimed twentieth-century architects and designers, Giò Ponti
(1891-1979).
The Giò Ponti exhibition in the Ponti-designed Pirelli
Tower, today seat of the Lombardy Region, marks the 50th anniversary of the
important landmark, a symbol of the modern age and Italy’s first skyscraper.
Also celebrating the Milan native’s innovative work in decorative ceramics, the
Pirelli Tower exhibition, Giò Ponti: The Charm of Ceramics, displays a
selection of the architect’s ceramic designs made for Richard-Ginori from 1923
to 1930, when he was artistic director of the historic Florentine ceramics
maker.
Among the items on display are urns, vases and Richard-Ginori’s
famed ceramics series designed by Ponti: the Classical Conversation, My Women,
and La Veneratoria.
The second show, at the Triennale Museum in Milan’s
Sempione Park, called Expressions of Giò Ponti, displays over 250 works made
during the architect and designer’s 70-year career. From the 1920s to the
1970s, Ponti raised the standards of Italian design and excellence in
architecture worldwide. The show displays sketches, models, paintings,
sculptures and ceramics of many of Ponti’s most acclaimed artistic, artisanal
and industrial designs and products.
A section of the exhibit is devoted to Ponti’s work in
Milan, with models and designs of the first offices of Montecatini (1936-1938),
the Pirelli Tower (1956-1961), and the church planned for the San Carlo
hospital (1961-1965). These designs are flanked by Ponti’s work in Italy and
throughout the world, especially in the United States, such as his design of
the auditorium of the Time & Life Building in New York (1959), the Denver
Art Museum (1971), and the Los Angeles Cathedral.
The Triennale show concludes with a selection of films
on Ponti’s work and interviews with the designer and architect.
Giò Ponti.
Il fascino della ceramica.
Palazzo
Pirelli, Milan
May
6 to July 24, 2011
Free
entrance, tel. 0541/787681
Espressioni
di Gio Ponti
Triennale
di Milano, Milan
May
6 to July 24, 2011
