Over an incredible career of nearly 60 years Gio Ponti built more than a hundred buildings throughout the world, including the first skyscraper in Italy.
In addition to architecture Gio Ponti also designed a considerable number of decorative objects including furniture.
Perhaps one of the most recognisable is the Superleggera Chair, or 699 chair as it is also known, is the ultimate iconic wooden dining chair of the 20th century.
He began work on Leggera series in the late 1940s, in collaboration with the craftsmen of Amedeo Cassina & Sons, gradually refining his design and striving towards a chair that was ‘light as a feather.’ T
The Superleggera chair was released with Italian manufacturing giant Cassina in 1957. The design went on to be the most popular of Ponti’s long career and has been in continuous production ever since.Ponti designed more than twenty chairs for Cassina in the 1950s, including his famous Superleggera chair, a small multipurpose chair, and the Distex armchair. The name of the latter may have derived from the Italian verb disentendere, meaning, “to stretch out.”
