Fato Table Lamp by Gio Ponti for Artemide, 1970s

Born in Milan in 1891, Giovanni (Gio) Ponti studied architecture at Politecnico. After serving in World War I, he worked as Art Director for respected ceramics company Richard-Ginori. Between 1923 and 1927, he partnered with architects Mino Fiocchi and Emilio Lancia. In 1928, Ponti launched both his own architectural studio and the famed magazine Domus. Through the pages of Domus—and, later, those of Lo Stile, which he founded and edited between 1941 and 1947—Ponti influenced international design taste for over 50 years.

Around 1933, he teamed up with engineers Antonio Fornaroli and Eugenio Soncini to form Studio Ponti-Fornaroli-Soncini, which embraced a decidedly Modernist idiom and lasted until 1945. In 1950, he won the design commission for what became one of the 20^th century’s most iconic buildings: Milan’s 32-story Pirelli Tower (built 1956). In 1952, he partnered with architect Alberto Rosselli (Studio Ponti-Fornaroli-Rosselli); after Rosselli’s death in 1976, Ponti continued to collaborate with longtime partner Fornaroli.

Throughout his career, Ponti juggled numerous roles, including architect, industrial designer, craftsman, professor, painter, editor, and journalist. In addition to his prolific architectural work, Ponti’s design credits are also extensive, ranging from coffee machines (the world’s first, the Pavoni, in 1949) to lighting and furniture for the likes of Cassina, Artemide, and Venini.

Legendary Italian lighting manufacturer Artemide was founded in the Milan area in 1959 by engineer-designer Ernesto Gismondi (born in San Remo, 1931) and designer Sergio Mazza (born in Milan, 1931). Notably, the latter designed the company’s first successful product, the Alfa Lamp, a year prior to Artemide’s launch. Both founders went on to contribute designs to Artemide’s ever-evolving lines over the next several decades, alongside spearheading the company’s mission to develop distinctive, architecturally-driven lamps, pendants, and other fixtures in collaboration with major design talents from around the world.

Highlights from Artemide’s vast catalogue include Italian designer Vico Magistretti’s space-age Eclisse Lamp (1967) and German-Italian designer Richard Sapper’s minimal, halogen-lit Tizio Desk Lamp (1972), which has become one of the most popular workspace accessories ever produced. The 1980s saw the launch of the Tolomeo Lamp (1987), designed by Italians Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina, which quickly became an international symbol of the “Made in Italy” style that dominated design tastes at the end of the last century. Today, Artemide continues to commission high-tech, high-concept works—increasingly with a focus on sustainability—from notable international designers, such as Herzog & De Meuron, Naoto Fukasawa, Karim Rashid, and Zaha Hadid, among others. Through the decades, many of Artemide’s lighting designs have been awarded the prestigious Compasso d’Oro, with the company itself receiving a “Career Achievement” award in 1995

For more than 50 years, Artemide’s approach has set the pace for design innovation with well-researched products that often end up in the pages of design history books. Numerous pieces have been acquisitioned into museum collections around the world, from New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnica in Milan, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.