At Milan Design Week, Saint Laurent Channels Gio Ponti’s Fabulous Caracas Era

To celebrate Milan Design Week, Saint Laurent is looking to one of the true titans of Italian design, Gio Ponti. Creative director Anthony Vacarello is curating a tableware collection and exhibition with the late polymath architect and designer’s archives, and there is quite the narrative in these gold-tinged dishes.

The project is being launched in conjunction with the Fundación Anala y Armando Planchart—Ponti designed the Venezuelan couple’s residence, a 1953 Modernist marvel on a hilltop overlooking the capital city, where the couple who made their wealth as General Motors dealers lived. The graceful, soaring exterior shape of La Villa Planchart was inspired by a butterfly and most of the construction materials were imported from Italy. Now a museum, visitors can travel up the hill to see the couple’s vast orchid and art collection, including a Fausto Melotti ceramic mural in the courtyard and an Alexander Calder mobile.

This photo taken on September 29, 2021 shows the decoration of Villa Planchart, also known as Quinta El Cerrito, which is a private residence built by the Italian architect Gio Ponti in the Colinas de San Román neighborhood. (Photo by Yuri CORTEZ / AFP) (Photo by YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

But Ponti did not only design the building. He filled the space with his furniture, lighting, and other industrial design products. That is where these glamorous plates come in: tableware was made especially for La Villa Planchart with the sun, the crescent moon, the polar star, and the letter “A” (for Armando and Anala) as motifs.

The gold-tinged plates feature the sun and “A” motifs. Courtesy of Saint Laurent.

For Salone de Mobile, Milan’s design week that runs until April 21, Saint Laurent has reissued 12 of these hand-painted porcelain plates from the original 1957 Villa Planchard Segnaposto collection. They will be available at YSL.com and at Saint Laurent outposts in Paris, Los Angeles, and—for a limited time—by appointment at the Milan flagship on Via Montenapoleone during Design Week.

This photo taken on September 29, 2021 shows a view, details and decoration of Villa Planchart, also known as Quinta El Cerrito, which is a private residence built by the Italian architect Gio Ponti in the Colinas de San Román neighborhood, Caracas, between 1953 and 1954. (Photo: Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images.

Open from April 16 to 21, the Gio Ponti – Villa Planchart exhibition will be on view at the Chiostri Di San Simpliciano in Milan. To pre-book tickets, register through this link.