Villa Planchart: Gio Ponti's Hidden Masterpiece in Caracas

On a hill in Caracas, a couple of Venezuelan collectors wrote to Gio Ponti in 1953: they wanted "a modern Italian house". He would deliver his absolute masterpiece — El Cerrito, the Villa Planchart, a "butterfly perched on the hill".

The total work of art

Ponti designed everything, to the point of obsession: the white façades with fine edges that seem to float, the interior walls canted to catch the light, the mosaic floors that change pattern in every room, the painted ceilings, the furniture, the handles, the cutlery. Fornasetti signed panels, Melotti's ceramics punctuate the walls.

Ponti's laboratory

Everything Milan would later see was invented here: the inhabited walls, the "furnished windows", the structural lightness that anticipates the Pirelli tower. The villa remains inhabited by the family foundation, preserved in its 1957 state — Ponti furniture included, priceless today.

To see

The Anala and Armando Planchart foundation opens the villa to visits by appointment — the ultimate pilgrimage for Ponti lovers, and failing that, his Molteni reissues give the measure of the design.

Spotted a piece with a Ponti spirit? Scan it on Beyit: edition, period, value.