Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti (1891–1979) is difficult to pin down. With an extraordinarily prolific output and eclectic style, his oeuvre remains one of the most diverse and groundbreaking in design history. Trained initially in architecture, Ponti soon moved into industrial and interior design, experimenting with ceramics, silverware, and glass. Ponti’s key works are spread throughout this extensive overview, including structures of all kinds, from small residential dwellings to high-rise buildings, schools, and office blocks.

The home was one of Ponti’s recurring interests and central areas of innovation. His talent for total design — a careful consideration of both interior and exterior space—is charted in the glossy reproductions, floor plans, and drawings featured in this edition. Ponti’s colourful, carefree, and elegant spaces blended an expressive neoclassicism with emerging modernist sensibility.

The founder and nearly lifelong editor of domus magazine never ceased to develop and reinvent his style. From the Denver Art Museum to his collection of churches, from bespoke homeware to the symbol of modern Milan, the Pirelli Tower, this monograph provides an introduction to Ponti’s exuberant creativity and illustrious career.

About the series

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Architecture series features:

- an introduction to the life and work of the architect
- the major works in chronological order
- information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions
- a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings
- approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts and plans)

The only book devoted to the sole building ever built in the United States by the mid-century Italian master architect and designer, whose brand has a cult following and ever-growing popularity.

Opened in 1971, Denver Art Museum's north building, a seven-story structure -- with its distinctive cut-out roofline, narrow windows, and an exterior covered with more than a million custom-made glass tiles -- was one of the first high-rise art museums.
In 2020, after a two-year closure for renovations, the museum is reopening the Ponti building, which will include new architecture and design galleries featuring an exhibition of Ponti-designed objects from the Denver Art Museum and local collections.
The book will include both recent and historic photography, including many architectural details, and tell the story of how Gio Ponti, at the end of his long and remarkable career, created an architectural icon in the American West.

Dr. Mäkelä, former chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver, will contribute an in-depth illustrated history of the building. Darrin Alfred, DAM Curator of Architecture and Design, will write about Ponti's design work using objects from the DAM collection as examples. Architect Jorge Silvetti will write about his admiration for Ponti's masterpiece from his perspective as one of the architects in charge of the renovations

About the Author:

Taisto Makela is the former chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver. Darrin Alfred is the Denver Art Museum curator of architecture, design and graphics. Architect Jorge Silvetti is the Nelson Robinson, Jr. Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His architecture firm, Machado and Silvetti, was founded in 1974 and has received numerous awards. Christoph Heinrich is the director of the Denver Art Museum since 2010, after having been the curator of modern and contemporary art. Salvatore Licitra is the grandson of Gio Ponti. He was the curator of the Gio Ponti retrospective "Tutto Ponti, Gio Ponti arch-designer" at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris

Minimum Design: An indispensable compendium on important designers of the modern era
An ideal and accessible introduction suitable for students and lovers of design today

Gio Ponti (Milano 1891-1979) was founder of 'Domus', Europe's most influential architecture and design magazine. Artistic director of Richard-Ginori, the ceramics manufacturer. Ponti's style was dominated by an exultant sense of the aesthetic both in his objects and his numerous buildings.

The Minimum Designers series includes books about the major figures in the field of design, creators of objects that have become a part of our daily lives. The lamp on our desk, the chair we are sitting on or the glasses we are wearing have a genius behind to be discovered.

These volumes will introduce in a practical manner the personalities and the works of the world's major designers by way of an historical-critical introduction to the work and life of each individual designer. An accurate selection of the designer's most famous objects arranged in chronological order and a critique of his or her work summarising the most significant reviews published in magazines and newspapers will complete the subject.

Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti (Джио Понти) (1891–1979) was the creator of a multifaceted oeuvre. Starting off with ceramics and majolika works at the First International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Monza, he moved on to furniture and interior design and built structures of all kinds, from small residential dwellings to high rise buildings, schools, and office blocks. One of his great interests was the theme of the home, for which he continually sought to find new solutions. Ponti’s colorful, carefree, elegant spaces were designed to inspire optimism in their occupants. The founder and nearly lifelong editor of domus magazine never stopped developing and reinventing his style. This book provides an introduction to Ponti’s creative process and gives an overview of the various phases of his career.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:

- approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
- introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
- the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
- an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings