Giovanni Ponti, Villa Bouilhet, Milano (Italy), 1926

Giovanni ‘Giò’ Ponti (18 November 1891 – 16 September 1979) was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, and publisher.

L’Ange Volant was the name that Ponti gave after the initial one of La Saint-Cloudienne to the Italian villa he designed for Tony Bouilhet. It’s built at Garches, outside Paris in the vicinity of Saint-Cloud’s Golf Club. A place that seemed to stimulate architectural events in those years: from Le Corbusier’s villa for the four Americans in Paris, Gertrude, Leo, Michael, and Sarah Stein to Perret’s villa for Numar Bey. This villa was the first house that Gio Ponti built abroad.

The central hall is two stories high and contains the stairs, a motif that Ponti would return to over the years. Its painted ceiling designed by Ponti is a sort of large colored tent suspended over the room. The main hall is large and endures the role of the lungs of the Villà. It is important to notice Gio Ponti separated the Villà in three different parts: one for the daytime, one for the night and a last one for the house service .

The Bouilhet family that lives there said that they could have remodeled the Villà, but then remarked how precious and unique the work of Gio Ponti was.

References:

Domus at www.domusweb.it
Allesandra Burigana at www.living.corriere.it
Gio Ponti, ‘Priorità italiana nello stile dell’apparecchio radio‘, in “Domus”, n. 155, 1940
M.Romanelli, ‘Azucena: 40 anni di storia dell’arredo‘, in Domus, n.723, 1991
E.Brigi, M.A.Crippa, ‘Il convento di Luigi Caccia Dominioni a Poschiavo‘, in Chiesa oggi, n.10, 1994