TASCHEN RELEASES NEW BOOK ON GIO PONTI’S ELUSIVE CREATIVE UNIVERSE

Gio Ponti’s crystal dreams is the most comprehensive attempt yet at capturing the Italian designer’s creative universe. With over 500 pages the book includes a detailed biographical essay by Italian writer and designer Stefano Casciani, close collaboration with the Ponti Archives, insights from poet and artist Lisa Licitra Ponti, who partnered closely with her father on the publication Domus until 1979. These intimate contributions combine to form a portrait of Gio Ponti’s elusive life as an architect, designer, publisher, poet, and man. The new book published by TASCHEN available on June 4, opens with eighteen poignant messages written by Lisa Licitra Ponti observing her father’s perspective on supporting emerging talent, his sayings, his interests and the risks and rewards of publishing work.

“For himself and his own work, Gio Ponti applied the same method he used for the work of others: show it immediately, publish it immediately. 

When publishing his own work, he would describe his intentions (and mistakes) project by project.

He was demanding, he was uncompromising, but (and I can say this, for I worked with him at Stile and Domus, for years) it came spontaneously to him to put the architects and artists he published to the test by giving them carte blanche for their pages. From “guests” they became “authors.” In printing the work of others, the work of young talents (who flourish in Italy), he would ask each author for a “declaration of intent.” To be published was the “running of a risk,” not a celebration. Authors run risks.

Would this new book have pleased Gio Ponti? It is a good thing when a new book runs a risk.”

— Lisa Licitra Ponti, Gio Ponti