A nimble walnut desk appears to slant slightly, as if crouching, ready to take off.“I call it my jumping horse: I mean it is a piece of furniture that is very simple but not formally inert,” said Italian designer and architect, Gio Ponti (1891-1979), of the walnut desk now on view at the new Musee des Arts Decoratifs (MAD), where a retrospective of the master designer is up until February 10, 2019. The same quality can be seen in so many of the over 400 pieces in the show, covering Ponti’s eclectic 60-year career, which began in the 1920s.“Tutto Ponti: Gio Ponti Archi-Designer” is an ambitious, first-of-its-kind exhibition that aims to grant Ponti his rightful place as a pivotal influence on the history of the arts.“People don’t realize that Ponti is at the source of the modern idea of design edited in series,” bringing art and industry closer together, said Dominique Forest, chief curator of MAD’s Modern and Contemporary department. “The French public is more familiar with people from the postPonti generation,” including Italian designers like Sottsass, of the Memphis Group, however, they were all indebted to Ponti, explained Forest. Through his writings and Domus, the influential magazine he founded in 1928, Ponti also, “had a very important role in the spread of design internationally,” she added.Domus gave Ponti a platform, which he used to advocate for the spread of Modern, “made in Italy” design, and in 1973 the museum dedicated a show to the publication, reinforcing the designer’s lasting connection to Paris and to the museum. It was only natural that, “we found ourselves all saying that we have to do this show, it was a little bit like everyone’s dream,” said Forest.With the help of the Ponti family archives, and several pieces on loan never seen before in public, the show takes visitors on a chronological journey through the designer’s jubilant play with all manner of materials, objects and surfaces, whether they be in the design of cutlery, ceramics, opera sets, costumes, historic skyscrapers, villas, churches erected around the world, and even colorful sketches on personal letters. The curiosity of this Renaissance designer seems to have had no bounds, and his designs reflect that open, vibrant spirit.In one of the most striking qualities of Ponti’s creative effervescence, the show celebrates his joyful use of color and pattern to boldly animate interiors, from floor to dinner plate. This is beautifully highlighted in the museum’s reproduction of several rooms from villas and apartments he created, as well as in the museum’s central hall dedicated to furniture and architecture. Sketches and mockups of buildings, plus original furniture and lighting fixtures are set amid large, bright photographs of their original locations, which are hung high in the central hall, taking advantage of the museum’s palatial ceiling.A favorite of Forest’s among the staged period rooms, is the Villa Planchart, an over 1,000- square-  meter home Ponti completed in 1957 for the Venezuelan couple, Armando and Anala Planchart. “It is a total work of art. Ponti did absolutely everything inside: the furniture, the ground, the ceiling, the light, door handles, the architecture,” said Forest, who was pleased the furniture on loan had never left Caracas before the show. The villa’s ceiling was also repainted for the exhibit, depicting geometric shapes in softened shades, which are reflected in patterns on table tops. The calmer tones and simplified compositions here maintain a balance in design that doesn’t become overwhelmingly busy.White-, yellow- and ochre-striped tiles cover the floor, and are reflected in stripes on the ceiling, in the restaging of the designer’s Via Dezza apartment. Ponti also designed a large grid of shelves to be placed against the window-wall facing the exterior, so that objects and artwork could be exhibited there, and easily moved around, bringing the home to life.To Ponti, “the house was a living place of comfort, of family, and it shouldn’t be static. At a time of a lot of minimalist, very functional, purist design, he — conversely — looked for comfort, fantasy, lightness and was very imaginative,” said Forest. “He worked a lot on the idea of the ‘Italian home,’ where everything is open, and walls can close with curtain-like devices, but can have a very free space without hallways,” she added.True to his “Italian house” principle, Ponti’s famous, “organized walls,” were excellent at both maximizing space and providing greater flexibility, while also beautifying the home. These multi-use walls in smooth wood or Formica panels were fixed to the wall, and included shelves, niches, drawers and frames, with lights, telephone and other devices to be added. Other colorful, geometric-shaped furniture Ponti designed for larger distribution could be folded and stored away for practical use in small apartments.“Like all the designers of the 20th century, Ponti wanted design to be more accessible to a larger public, except that he always kept one foot in the tradition of artisanal crafts, which continued to interest him,” said Forest. “It’s impossible to say that there was a period that was more industrial, and then another that was more artisanal. It’s really both that led simultaneously,” she said.The first part of the visit is dedicated to Ponti’s work in ceramics, glass, silver and enamel, through collaborations with Richard Ginori, Christofle, Fontana Arte, Venini and others. It includes his famous, ultimate Italian aerodynamic coffee pot, “La Cornuta,” 1949, for La Pavoni, and chronologically illustrates how the artist moved from principles of classicism to modernism. However, the backbone of the show rests on Ponti’s architectural creations, which are immediately evoked at the entrance, with a spectacular homage to his masterpiece, the Taranto Cathedral (1964-1970).For the show, Wilmotte & Associates reproduced the cathedral’s lattice wall of geometric forms at a large enough scale to reach toward the ceiling of the museum’s towering entrance hall. It is a prime example of the architect’s life-long quest for transparency and lightness, which is shown in architectural models, sketches, videos and photographs.“There are large constants in his work, but it gets increasingly lighter and aerial, with large openings, as the years go by,” said Forest, sighting the Taranto Cathedral as a prime example. Thus, walls were not limited to their structural function, but were also made to feel as though they were suspended. In the realm of office buildings, Ponti’s landmark Pirelli Tower, 1956-1960, in Milan, which, at 127 meters (417 feet) tall, was the highest building in Europe when it was erected, came to symbolize the city’s economic clout. With its ultra-slender form, and illuminated facade, the tower, “hasn’t aged a day since it was built. It’s just as seductive,” said Forest.With the Pirelli Tower, and Ponti’s church designs in particular, “there is this idea of a finished form, which went contrary to international style, in which you could add onto a building’s height and size as much as you liked. Instead, Ponti tried to make a form that is closed, finished. One can feel it in both his architecture and furniture,” said Forest. That philosophy also worked well in Milan, which needed massive rebuilding after World War II bombings, while still respecting the existing cityscape and surviving structures.As a result, Ponti and his generation of Italian architects had a particularly powerful impact on the Italian capital’s future urban landscape. On the subject, Ponti famously said, “God helped a lot in the beautification of [other, major European] cities, but for us in Milan, he didn’t do anything. So it’s up to us to make Milan beautiful.” If anything, the show underscore’s Ponti’s large, generous hand in doing just that.“Tutto Ponti: Gio Ponti Arch-Designer” is on view at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, through February 10, 2019. More information: www.madparis.frThis article appears in the December 2018 edition of BlouinShop magazine. To subscribe, visit http://blouinsubscriptions.com/https://www.blouinartinfo.com/              Founder: Louise Blouin  Read more