C
1891–1979
The architect, editor and teacher who set the terms of Italian design for fifty years, and made a chair light enough to lift with one finger.
Why they matter
Ponti graduated from the Milan Polytechnic in 1921, directed ceramics at Richard-Ginori from 1923, founded Domus in 1928 and edited it for most of his life, and taught at the Polytechnic from 1936 to 1961. Almost everyone in postwar Italian design passed through one of those channels.
The buildings run from the Pirelli Tower in Milan to the Denver Art Museum. The furniture is mostly for Cassina, above all the Superleggera of 1957, a refinement of the 1954 Leggera, with ash legs of triangular section and a total weight under two kilos. He designed extensively for ISA Bergamo as well.
The Superleggera is still made. What separates a period Cassina chair from a current one, or from an unmarked ISA piece, is documentation, and that is where the money sits.
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Key forms & materials
Forms
- Superleggera chair
- Leggera chair
- Distex armchair
- D.153.1 armchair
- ISA wingback chair
- Ceramic vase
Materials
- Ash
- Beech
- Brass
- Velvet
- Ceramic
What to look for
Marks, editions, patina and production partners — fact-checked for this designer.
- Period Cassina Superleggera chairs carry a Figli di Amadeo Cassina metal label, and from 1965 authentic Cassina pieces carry a sewn label with model, serial number and Made in Italy.
- A label reading anything like Cassina style, or printed rather than woven, is a counterfeit marker.
- ISA Bergamo made a great deal of his furniture and much of it left the factory unmarked, so those attributions rest on period publication, often in Domus itself, rather than on a mark.
- Pieces he designed and Piero Fornasetti decorated are a genuine collaboration and should credit both rather than one.
- Weight is a real test on a Superleggera: the original is startlingly light and the copies are not.
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