At the heart of the presentation for Salone del Mobile.Milano is Archive, Editions Milano project dedicated to the re-edition of objects drawn from the history of twentieth-century Italian design. Following Magellano, the vase designed by Vico Magistretti, the journey continues with Teatro, the only basket Gio Ponti designed during the course of his career. A signed and numbered re-edition of the basket designed by Gio Ponti in the late 1940s. Teatro expresses one of the fundamental principles of Ponti’s design thinking: the centrality of perception. While a basket is traditionally conceived as a closed container, Teatro takes the form of an open, permeable structure, conceived to reveal rather than hide. Its form is immediately legible, turning the object into a kind of staging. As its name suggests, Teatro displays more than it contains, and in its essentiality makes visible the relationship between structure, function and form. The Teatro basket is crafted in brass with a palladium finish, in Italy, like the entire Editions Milano Collection.

“The structure of the basket is essential. Teatro is a protagonist,” says Salvatore Licitra, curator of the Gio Ponti Archives, speaking with Editions Milano. “Ponti believed that what is essential is destined to endure: when an object clearly expresses its concept, in its nakedness, it never ages.”

“Archive is not a category but an editorial language,” says Alberto Pellini, Creative Director of Editions Milano. “From time to time, we will publish an object from the Archive, bringing back projects that continue to resonate within the contemporary home. Editions Milano aims to act as a publisher of domestic design, guided by a clear cultural narrative”.