Heritage Collection

Molteni&C is re-examining its own history with an eye to the future. The 80!Molteni exhibition, the creation of the company’s historical archive and its recently inaugurated Molteni Museum have provided an opportunity for revival, from the origins of modernity.

Official hashtag: #MolteniHeritageCollection

Great new classics

Intriguing traces have emerged from a past that turns out to be contemporary, ripe for a re-think today. Unique pieces that can step straight out of their museum showcases and into our contemporary homes.

“It was thought that architecture should be purely functional, with very little margin for decoration. But the Italian genius could not help but create architecture with a more human face, which we call the Latin touch”

The Plancharts commissioned Gio Ponti to design their home, on top of a cerro overlooking Caracas. For them, refined art collectors and Italy lovers, Ponti designed everything, from the structure to the furniture. This armchair is a shell to accommodate precious friends. It is a sculpture among sculptures and an art work among the art works.

"I am grateful to Anala and Armando Planchart for letting me honour their home with Italian art works, alongside the works of Venezuelan and international abstract artists and those of the great Venezuelan master Reveron (...). These range from Morandi paintings to those of Campigli, Melotti and Rui, the Venini and Seguso glasses, Gambone ceramics, and Ferrari silks..."

Gio Ponti, Domus 1961

The best designs are timeless and this revisited edition respects that, by renovating and reviving the project’s soul. New technologies, materials, functional solutions, with respect for its original – exactly as Gio Ponti would have wanted.

Designed in the 1950s for M. Singer&Sons, one of the most important furnishing companies in New York, this small table is part of a collection for the American market. The combination of different shapes and materials testifies to Gio Ponti’s diversity and innovative power.

"Recreating pieces that were never produced, (because Ponti used to design more than what he could have produced) or re-editing forgotten pieces, gives us the opportunity to better understand his personality, work and role in an important moment of Italian architecture"

Salvatore Licitra, Gio Ponti Archivist

The drawer unit designed in different variations between 1952 and 1955, is based on the original drawings kept by the Gio Ponti Archives. The art direction of this new edition was entrusted to Studio Cerri & Associati.

Molteni&C proposes the forms of the objects Gio Ponti designed and built for his house in Via Dezze in Milan. His small table, library, and armchair show that there was no gap between his personal appeals and his architectural vision. This is living according to Ponti.

Molteni&C re-launches folding chairs designed by Gio Ponti in 1970 with a new and surprising look.

"To be comfortably seated while crossing your legs, little sitting and much backrest, tilted just like this, are necessary."

Gio Ponti

"The metal tube chair and table have an absolute original form, clearly distinguished from any of the traditional frames. They have a new practicality and elasticity, closer to the modern essential requirements. At the same time, their series-construction, can guarantee their form’s absolute perfection of beauty, in absolute conformity to the first model created by the artist."

Gio Ponti, Domus, 1939

"The modern architect, the academic architect, should learn from the craftsmen: marble workers (shiny surfaces, polished, stone hammered, bush-hammered, and scaled), carpenters, stucco workers, blacksmiths, from all the workers and craftsmen (that is so beautiful)"

Gio Ponti, Amate l’architettura