D.270.1 Chair

“And here is the new wide chair with a narrow and foldable seat”. So wrote Gio Ponti in 1970 when describing the launch of a chair that differed from all the others. A chair for conversation, reading a book or watching TV. Minimal overall dimensions, versatile, movable. Light but solid, easy, comfortable and affordable. A chair for everyone, for every occasion, for indoor and outdoor use, for a house that adapts to our needs. “To sit comfortably, crossing your legs, you need a small seat and lots of backrest, reclining like this”, said Gio Ponti.
The chair belongs to the “Apta” series, a furniture collection devised for a new way of “thinking” the home. It was presented in 1970 at the Eurodomus 3 tradeshow in Milan, one of four “pilot exhibitions” on the modern home theme, organized by Domus magazine and by Torino Esposizioni. Furniture created to enjoy the greatest space possible in each home – not cluttering interiors with bulky, heavy objects, impossible to move – but instead forming a new domestic landscape. Everything was to be easily movable, both thanks to castors and because it was light and foldable, conveniently matching elements with minimum overall dimensions. Designer furniture distributed at affordable prices.
In 1970, the last decade of his long career, Gio Ponti reflected further on the question of the Italian-style home and wrote his Manifesto della Casa Adatta (Manifesto for a Suitable Home): “It is not up to us to adapt to just any sort of house, instead it is the house that must adapt to us, providing an expression of modern life and culture through architecture’s exteriors and interiors” (Gio Ponti, 1970).
Now, working in collaboration with the Gio Ponti Archives, Molteni&C has reissued the D.270.1 and D.270.2 chair and armchair: both are foldable, come in new finishes and woods – black or natural ash -, with backrest and seat in fabric, leather or wicker, or alternatively upholstered in the “Poesia del mare” fabric designed by Gio Ponti in 1970.