DESIGNED 1951, EXECUTED LATE 1950S

Piero Fornasetti's artistic friendship with Gio Ponti commenced in 1940 and had already yielded numerous spectacular collaborations by the time the original 1951 prototype of this cabinet, now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, was presented at the IX Triennale, Milan. Whilst historical precedent provides touchstones for decorative and formal inspiration, this important work is defined by Fornasetti's unique ability to superimpose, upon Ponti's refined structure, an imaginative and characteristically surreal décor that playfully deconstructs preconceptions of interior and exterior space.

Examples of the Architettura cabinet are retained in the collections of the Fornasetti Archive, Milan, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.