Gio Ponti

Gio Ponti: Architect of Surfaces The Chair You Can Lift with One Finger Pick up a Superleggera and the weight startles—or rather, the absence of weight. At 1.7 kilograms, the chair can be hoisted with a single hand, balanced on a fingertip if the grip is right. The ash frame has been shaved to structural limits: each leg tapers to a thickness barely wider than a thumb at its thinnest point, the stretchers reduced to the minimum cross-section that will bear a seated adult without buckling. The cane seat, hand-woven in the traditional Chiavari manner, contributes almost nothing to the mass. Pont...