The UP5 and 6 Chair Becomes A Work of Art

Italian designer Gaetano Pesce created a special gigantic version of his iconic UP5 and 6 Chair, also known as the "Donna" Chair (previously here) for this month's Milan Design Week.

Gaetano Pesce originally created his chair for B&B Italia (then known as C&B Italia) in 1969 out of polyurethane foam and a jersey stretch fabric. Primarily an architect, Pesce is also an industrial designer working on creating chairs with organic forms. His UP5 and 6 Chair--5 is the chair and 6 is the attached ottoman--is also known as the "La Mama Chair" or the "Donna Chair" (donna being the Italian word for woman) because the form is unmistakably female. The chair is still in production through B&B Italia who describe the chair this way:

"The chair is a metaphor of a large comfortable womb and recalls ancient statues of fertility goddesses. However, it has something extra: a spherical ottoman tied to the armchair. Therefore, the image of comfort and convenience is combined with a more figurative image of a woman with a ball and chain on her foot. Gaetano Pesce explains the project as follows: 'At that time, I was telling a personal story about my concept of women: I believe that women have always been unwilling prisoners of themselves. This is why I decided to give this armchair the shape of a woman with a ball and chain, a traditional image of a prisoner.'"

Perhaps what Pesce more accurately means is that women, by being themselves, have always been prisoners of men.

So to mark the 50th anniversary of the chair, and to highlight the ongoing struggles that women around the world face on a daily basis, Pesce revisited his Donna Chair, creating a 26-foot high version pierced with arrows to bring attention to violence against women. Titled "Maestà Soffrente," or "Suffering Majesty," the piece was shown from April 7 to 14, 2019 in the Piazza del Duomo, in front of the Milan Cathedral.

Photos of "Maestà Soffrente" by Matteo Piazza

Happy designing!

Famous Homes: Villa Necchi Campiglio

If you saw director Luca Guadagnino's 2009 film "Io Sono Amore" ("I Am Love") starring Tilda Swinton (Guadagnino also directed the phenomenal "Call Me By Your Name" in 2017), you have seen our next home in our continuing Famous Homes series (previously here).

The Villa Necchi Campiglio in Milan was designed by Piero Portaluppi and built between 1932 and 1935 for sisters Gigina and Nedda Necchi (heiresses to a sewing machine empire), and Gigina’s husband, Angelo Campiglio. The design of the house represented the world's expanding interest in Modernism. Keep in mind that the Modernist Bauhaus school closed in 1933 because of Nazi opposition, but on the other side of the coin, the Villa Necchi Campiglio was designed and built during the height of Italy's rising Fascism which of course greatly influenced architecture. The dedication to clean lines and severity led to unadorned monuments, like the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana on the outskirts of Rome, and the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence. In fact, in 1943, the Villa became a headquarters for the Fascist Republican Party, while the family repaired to the countryside.

After the war, the family decided to refurbish the house and employed Tomaso Buzzi to bring in furniture and furnishings that reflected a resurgent interest in antiques from the 18th and 19th centuries. Unfortunately, this developed a schism in the spirit of the house. One of my design mottoes, seen to the right, is "Contrast brings interest," but contrast used judiciously and not haphazard. The Villa Necchi Campiglio does not feel like fertile ground for the kind of overwrought lighting fixtures and large, ornate fireplace surrounds that still burden the house. But one can still see the bones of the house in the marvelous steel doors, the geometric panels on the staircase, and the restrained use of inlaid rosewood. And a few pieces of original furniture by modernist designer Guglielmo Ulrich are peppered about.

Villa Necchi Campiglio has been open to the public as a museum since 2008. Gigina, who lived longer than her sister and husband and never had any children, died in 2001 at age 99 and bequeathed the house to Italy’s national trust for restoring and preserving historical buildings. The house is open for tours...if you are going to be in Milan, click here for information about the house and how to visit it!

And as I mentioned above, the film "I Am Love" was set at the Villa.

Happy designing!

Legends of Design: Gio Ponti

In every industry, in every arena, there are legends who have come before and if one wishes to know as much as one can about a chosen subject, it is good to take a look at those legends and see what they contributed to where we are now.

One of those giants of design is Italian designer Gio Ponti who created a slew of Modernist masterpieces. While primarily an architect (in 1950 he designed the infulential The Pirelli Tower in Milan, and the northern extension of the Denver Art Museum in 1971), he also worked in ceramic and glass and designed flatware, furniture, lighting, and decorative objects over a long and spectacularly prolific career which included founding and editing the famous interior design magazines Domus (from its inception in 1928 to 1941 and then from 1948 to his death in 1979), and Stile from 1942 to 1947.

A magnanimous, larger-than-life personality who was a great lover of art, Ponti believed in the marriage of the practical and the beautiful. Arguably, his most famous creation is the Superleggera or Super Light Chair. In 1957, he created a chair out of lightweight materials and the advertisements of the day showed a young boy lifting it with a single finger. The chair has been re-issued by Cassina and is available for purchase now.

He also designed the Distex chair and its descendant, a lounge chair with open sides and stiletto legs for Molteni.

And it is easy to see why this Ponti chair was christened the 969 Chair when you see the undulating back rest.

Ponti worked with glass blowers in Venice to create the iconic and often-imitated Modernist Murano chandelier.

Other lighting designs include the Bilia light, a cone with a lighted ball perched on top, the very Modernist 0024XXL hanging lamp featuring stacks of glass discs, and the Fato lamp which can be used as a table lamp or as a wall sconce!

Here is a sideboard and cocktail table for Molteni...

...and this stunning tripod, oval cocktail table with a cut-out hole.

And finally, take a look at some of his decorative objects:

But in Italy, he will forever be known for his redesign of a staple of daily Italian life, the espresso machine. Ponti designed La Cornuta for Pavoni in 1948.

Happy Modernist designing!