20th Century Gio Ponti Floor Lamp in Perforated Aluminium and Steel by Reggiani

Founded in Italy in 1957 by Goffredo Reggiani, whose family still runs it, Reggiani Illuminazione today is an international company recognized as one of the world’s foremost producers of LED fixtures. Along with Venini and Kartell, the firm was part of the Italian design renaissance that took place in the middle of the last century, introducing exuberant new forms and colors for modern interiors. While Kartell and Venini specialized in plastic and glass, respectively, Reggiani has always focused on lighting, pioneering innovative technologies for every type of illumination, from wall sconces to track lights.

Reggiani rose to prominence in the 1960s with its introduction of sleek, sophisticated lighting fixtures made from wood, glass, and metal. This pair of sconces with frosted glass shades is typical of the firm’s early offerings, combining the warmth of teak — very popular at the time, thanks to the success of Danish modern furniture and accessories — with a futuristic silhouette free of embellishment. Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, Reggiani’s chandeliers and pendant lights grew increasingly adventurous in design. Its Space Age line, featuring vivid hues and bold geometric forms, such as the cluster of spheres in this Sputnik chandelier, reflect the contemporary fascination with the space race, which influenced the design, popular culture and even fashion of the era. Inthe late 1970s, Reggiani began using acrylics in pieces like this bright orange table lamp.

Starting in the 1970s, the firm introduced the first low-voltage line of halogen lamps in Europe and, in the 1980s, debuted the Downspot. The first fully adjustable recessed electric lighting fixture, the Downspot became a popular design for track lighting, enabling architects and designers to customize illumination as never before. Today, Reggiani is at the forefront of LED lighting. In 2009, it launched the LED Luce system, which is now used in a variety of public spaces, including libraries, museums and showrooms. The firm’s Ambar fixtures were chosen for Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’s installation at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

An architect, furniture and industrial designer and editor, Gio Ponti was arguably the most influential figure in 20th-century Italian modernism.

Ponti (1891–1979) designed thousands of furnishings and products — from cabinets, lamps and chairs to ceramics and coffeemakers — and his buildings, including the brawny Pirelli Tower (1956) in his native Milan, and the castle-like Denver Art Museum (1971), were erected in 14 countries. Through Domus, the magazine he founded in 1928, Ponti brought attention to virtually every significant movement and creator in the spheres of modern art and design.

The questing intelligence Ponti brought to Domus is reflected in his work: as protean as he was prolific, Ponti’s style can’t be pegged to a specific genre. In the 1920s, as artistic director for the Tuscan porcelain maker Richard Ginori, he fused old and new; his ceramic forms were modern, but decorated with motifs from Roman antiquity. In pre-war Italy, modernist design was encouraged, and after the conflict, Ponti — along with designers such as Carlo Mollino, Franco Albini, Marco Zanuso — found a receptive audience for their novel, idiosyncratic work. Ponti’s typical furniture forms from the period, such as the wedge-shaped Distex chair, are simple, gently angular, and colorful; equally elegant and functional. In the 1960s and ’70s, Ponti’s style evolved again as he explored biomorphic shapes, and embraced the expressive, experimental designs of Ettore Sottsass Jr., Joe Colombo and others.

His signature furniture piece — the one by which he is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Germany’s Vitra Design Museum and elsewhere — is the sleek Superleggera chair, produced by Cassina starting in 1957. (The name translates as “superlightweight” — advertisements featured a model lifting it with one finger.) Ponti had a playful side, best shown in a collaboration he began in the late 1940s with the graphic artist Piero Fornasetti. Ponti furnishings were decorated with bright finishes and Fornasetti's whimsical lithographic transfer prints of things such as butterflies, birds or flowers; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts possesses a 1950 secretary from their Architetturra series, which feature case pieces covered in images of building interiors and facades. The grandest project Ponti and Fornasetti undertook, however, lies on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean: the interiors of the luxury liner Andrea Doria, which sank in 1956.

Widely praised retrospectives at the Queens Museum of Art in 2001 and at the Design Museum London in 2002 sparked a renewed interest in Ponti among modern design aficionados. (Marco Romanelli’s monograph written for the London show, offers a fine overview of Ponti’s work.) Today, a wide array of Ponti’s designs are snapped up by savvy collectors who want to give their homes a touch of Italian panache and effortless chic.

Find a range of Gio Ponti furniture on 1stDibs.