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In the Milanese home designed by Gio Ponti for himself and his family, architect Paolo Rizzo has carried out an intervention that moves across time through materiality, light and a contemporary sensibility capable of engaging with Ponti’s legacy without turning it into quotation.
Via Dezza occupies a unique place in the history of Italian architecture. It was here that Gio Ponti distilled one of the most complete expressions of his idea of living, transforming the home into a laboratory of light, proportion and compositional freedom. When Paolo Rizzo first crossed its threshold, he did so, in his own words, “with childlike eyes”: moved, silent and eager to grasp the essence of a place that seemed to hold the mature outcome of a long reflection on the home.
That encounter gave rise to a project driven by the desire to preserve Ponti’s spirit: his “cultured lightness” and his ability to make spaces feel alive, luminous and deeply human. Palladiana flooring, Vietri ceramics and Bardiglio marble are reinterpreted through a contemporary lens, maintaining a connection with the original material vocabulary without reducing it to a decorative repertoire.
Light, too, assumes a central role. Rizzo describes it as “a material within the project”, defined by a strong Mediterranean identity and capable of continually reshaping the perception of surfaces and volumes.
The same attention informs the selection of the furnishings. Seating by Pierre Paulin, Warren Platner and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, together with the Sarpi table by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, enters the interiors as a series of carefully measured presences, able to engage with both the architecture and the design culture evoked by the house.
“To know history in depth is an essential prerequisite,” Rizzo observes. It is from this knowledge that a composition emerges, defining rhythm, proportion and atmosphere. Within this process, the collaboration with Gianluca Mollura and Mohd is rooted in a shared culture of design and a common commitment to quality.
The project is captured through the lens of Andrea Ferrari, whom Rizzo considers one of the foremost interpreters of interior photography. His images do more than document the spaces: through shadows, reflections and material depth, they capture their most subtle atmospheres.
This quality emerges with particular clarity in the photograph chosen by Elle Decor for the cover of its Sensory Design special issue. “Andrea was able to capture that sense of silence, suspension and restraint that ran through the project,” says the architect.
In the issue’s editorial, Livia Peraldo invites readers “to slow down, to savour the centrality of perception and re-establish an authentic dialogue with space”.
In Via Dezza, the light filtered through Venetian blinds, the reflections across surfaces and the constant transformation of materials create an experience that requires time and attention. It is a condition that belongs both to Ponti’s home and to its contemporary reinterpretation. As Rizzo concludes, “sensory design stems from the ability to make us slow down and truly feel the space around us once again.”
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