Gio Ponti’s Objects Collection
Molteni&C unveils Gio Ponti Objects, a collection of eight of the revered Italian architect’s intimately scaled works.
“Architecture is an interpretation of life,” observed Gio Ponti, and in Molteni&C’s new Objects Collection, his ideas are distilled from the scale of the building to the palm of the hand. The series brings together eight pieces from more than 250 objects in Ponti’s archive, each conceived as a small world of its own, yet grounded in the everyday rituals of the home.
Rather than decorative afterthoughts, these objects act as what Ponti’s grandson and archivist Salvatore Licitra calls “vibrant domestic sentinels” – functional sculptures that invite play, touch and constant rearrangement. La Mano, a curved sheet of stainless steel that opens into an impossible six-fingered hand, is at once a measure of human scale and a gently subversive reminder that error and imagination are inseparable. Cavallo and Colombo, the horse and dove, fold a single plane of metal into origami-like silhouettes, transforming a flat surface into archetypal creatures that feel pulled from collective memory.
Elsewhere, Ponti turns the table into a kind of city. 7Tubi gathers seven vertical cylinders into a candelabrum or vase that reads like a cluster of towers, while Pompei balances delicately on three supports, echoing the engineered boldness of the master’s larger structural experiments. Architettura, a tray without handles, abstracts the hexagonal plan that underpinned much of Ponti’s architectural thinking, most notably the Pirelli Tower, and returns it to the scale of the dining setting.
Materiality is central throughout. Stainless steel, originally worked in silver with silversmith Lino Sabattini, catches and multiplies light along crisp edges. The Bottiglie series in ash pairs contrasting grains and tones so that each turned form becomes a miniature totem, part bottle, part character. Bucchero, realised with the Buccheri Antonio Rossi workshop, draws on an Etruscan firing technique that produces a deep black sheen, carrying the weight of history while sitting comfortably within a contemporary interior.
Available now in selected Molteni&C flagship stores worldwide and online, the Gio Ponti Objects Collection extends the brand’s long-standing commitment to the architect’s work. More than a reissue, it positions these “beautiful and impossible” pieces as tools for living – objects that quietly transform shelves, tables and sideboards into stages where architecture, memory and everyday life intersect.
