A Look Back at Gio Ponti’s Superleggera Chair

Gio Ponti regarded his Superleggera for Cassina as one of his three major masterpieces. (The other two are his Pirelli Tower in Milan and Taranto’s Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio.) Named after the Italian term for super-lightweight (clocking in at just 3.7 pounds), the ash and rattan chair represented an exciting take on the Ligurian region’s traditional chiavarina. Ponti’s first iteration, the Leggera of 1951, distilled into an even more elemental form in 1957 with the lithe Superleggera, which achieves its stability from struts slotted together. To test the design, it was thrown from the fourth floor of an apartment building; the chair bounced on the street but did not break. Ponti was satisfied and the rest, as they say, is history: Superleggera has been produced continually ever since.