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Lot Essay
Radiant Through The Ages: Gio Ponti’s Buenos Aires Chairs
Recently discovered in Buenos Aires, these large and generously proportioned armchairs were designed in tandem with a large four seater sofa (sold at Christie’s, New York, 7 June 2024, lot 74). They are new additions to the ever unfolding Ponti canon, long missing links bridging the gap between his late 1920s Novecento period and his more reductive mid and late 1930s Rationalist phase. Their design is a synthesis of multiple design currents explored by Ponti in his interior and architecture commissions during his prolific 1930s decade.
In 1928, he had already come up with a manifesto-like statement to define the specific characteristics of Italian design for 20th century modern living, which appeared in his first editorial for Domus, La Casa all’italiana. In it he wrote: "design doesn't stem solely from the material needs of life; this is not just a ‘machine à habiter’ in the Italian style. Home ’comfort’ doesn't just mean responding to our basic living needs and comforts. The ‘comfort' here goes beyond that; it uses architecture as a measure for our own thoughts'' (Domus, Jan. 1928, p.7).
In 1930 at the Monza Triennale, Ponti gave a graphic vision to his La Casa all'italiana concepts, presenting two pen and ink drawings of what such an Italian home interior should strive to be. The general concept of our 1932 armchairs can be traced to the Monza Triennale drawings, as evident in the variations on all the seating themes. However, it is in relation to his most important and famous interior commission of the 1930⁄1931 Florentine Villa Vittoria for the Count Contini Bonacossi that the "Buenos Aires" armchairs evolved from. The similarities are evident when considering that in both cases the internal padding is cradled in an external shell. Here Ponti used a sumptuous rare walnut rootwood from Ferrara (radica Ferrarese). While the cradle runs along the sides of the Florentine armchairs, it ends halfway in the Buenos Aires model.
In his Contini Bonacossi commission Ponti took his cue from the Count's Roman antiquities collection installed on the two lower floors of the villa. These ancient objects turned out to be rich departure points for his later Metaphysical reductive forms. The 1932 “Buenos Aires chairs” are pared down even further while still hinting at ancient precedents, from the Classical Greek period the marble "Elgin Throne", 300-200 BC, to the neoclassical precedents of the walnut Cattedra Cicognara by Giuseppe Borsato of 1820.
What is essential here is the typology: a seat shell made of veneered wood, but more specifically burl walnut. This design may relate to old seat shells shaped as an inverted helmet such as in this example of 1820. The principle likely reaches back much further, even into antiquity when a helmet could sit atop a column as a ceremonial symbol, connoting majesty, divine power, protection, etc.
In all his works Ponti systematically harnessed architectural culture into private interiors to stir visual delight by inviting the observer to recall historical sources while enjoying the seductive synthesis he so cleverly engineered.
Ponti's methods are trans-historical. His architectural and design language is at times antithetical to then emerging visions such as those of the Bauhaus or Le Corbusier. He may appear casual with his attitude towards Antiquity and the Renaissance but he deliberately relied on instinct, taking that which aligned to his sensibility at that time to give new meaning to borrowed motifs.
Over the last few years there has been a palpable surge of interest in Ponti’s design "poetics" of the unexpected: a bold reach into the ancient past in tandem with contemporary Italian design know-how, where an abundance of formal wit brings life to meticulously calibrated inventions.
Brian Kish November 2025
Brian Kish is an art historian, curator, specialist in 20th Century Italian Architecture and Design, and senior consultant to the Gio Ponti Archives, since 2006.
Recently discovered in Buenos Aires, these large and generously proportioned armchairs were designed in tandem with a large four seater sofa (sold at Christie’s, New York, 7 June 2024, lot 74). They are new additions to the ever unfolding Ponti canon, long missing links bridging the gap between his late 1920s Novecento period and his more reductive mid and late 1930s Rationalist phase. Their design is a synthesis of multiple design currents explored by Ponti in his interior and architecture commissions during his prolific 1930s decade.
In 1928, he had already come up with a manifesto-like statement to define the specific characteristics of Italian design for 20th century modern living, which appeared in his first editorial for Domus, La Casa all’italiana. In it he wrote: "design doesn't stem solely from the material needs of life; this is not just a ‘machine à habiter’ in the Italian style. Home ’comfort’ doesn't just mean responding to our basic living needs and comforts. The ‘comfort' here goes beyond that; it uses architecture as a measure for our own thoughts'' (Domus, Jan. 1928, p.7).
In 1930 at the Monza Triennale, Ponti gave a graphic vision to his La Casa all'italiana concepts, presenting two pen and ink drawings of what such an Italian home interior should strive to be. The general concept of our 1932 armchairs can be traced to the Monza Triennale drawings, as evident in the variations on all the seating themes. However, it is in relation to his most important and famous interior commission of the 1930⁄1931 Florentine Villa Vittoria for the Count Contini Bonacossi that the "Buenos Aires" armchairs evolved from. The similarities are evident when considering that in both cases the internal padding is cradled in an external shell. Here Ponti used a sumptuous rare walnut rootwood from Ferrara (radica Ferrarese). While the cradle runs along the sides of the Florentine armchairs, it ends halfway in the Buenos Aires model.
In his Contini Bonacossi commission Ponti took his cue from the Count's Roman antiquities collection installed on the two lower floors of the villa. These ancient objects turned out to be rich departure points for his later Metaphysical reductive forms. The 1932 “Buenos Aires chairs” are pared down even further while still hinting at ancient precedents, from the Classical Greek period the marble "Elgin Throne", 300-200 BC, to the neoclassical precedents of the walnut Cattedra Cicognara by Giuseppe Borsato of 1820.
What is essential here is the typology: a seat shell made of veneered wood, but more specifically burl walnut. This design may relate to old seat shells shaped as an inverted helmet such as in this example of 1820. The principle likely reaches back much further, even into antiquity when a helmet could sit atop a column as a ceremonial symbol, connoting majesty, divine power, protection, etc.
In all his works Ponti systematically harnessed architectural culture into private interiors to stir visual delight by inviting the observer to recall historical sources while enjoying the seductive synthesis he so cleverly engineered.
Ponti's methods are trans-historical. His architectural and design language is at times antithetical to then emerging visions such as those of the Bauhaus or Le Corbusier. He may appear casual with his attitude towards Antiquity and the Renaissance but he deliberately relied on instinct, taking that which aligned to his sensibility at that time to give new meaning to borrowed motifs.
Over the last few years there has been a palpable surge of interest in Ponti’s design "poetics" of the unexpected: a bold reach into the ancient past in tandem with contemporary Italian design know-how, where an abundance of formal wit brings life to meticulously calibrated inventions.
Brian Kish November 2025
Brian Kish is an art historian, curator, specialist in 20th Century Italian Architecture and Design, and senior consultant to the Gio Ponti Archives, since 2006.