The Building
A fine and prestigious architectural work, the Hotel della Città was inaugurated in 1957. The celebrated architect Gio Ponti was commissioned by the great and munificent Forlì businessman and publisher Aldo Garzanti
The complex was meant by Aldo Garzanti to be the headquarters of the Livio and Maria Garzanti Foundation and a “home for artists,” that is, a free place of hospitality and work for artists, men of letters and men of science.
The Hotel della Città is also a place that fully expresses Gio Ponti’s vision. Indeed, it testifies to the unique and original synthesis of tradition and modernity, history and design, elite culture and everyday living.
It is therefore an exemplary work of twentieth-century architecture and, at the same time, a manifesto of the generosity of a great Forlì native towards his hometown.
Gio Ponti
Gio Ponti was born in Milan in 1891 and graduated in architecture in 1921. In 1923 he participated in the I Biennial of Decorative Arts in Monza. During this period he began his design work in the Richard Ginori ceramics industry, winning the Grand Prix at the 1925 Paris Exposition. In 1928 he founded the magazine Domus. A few years later he organized the first Triennale in Milan. In 1936 he became a tenured professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the Milan Polytechnic, a position he held until 1961. In 1952 the Ponti-Fornaioli-Rosselli studio was founded: from this time his style became more innovative, abandoning references to the neoclassical past. He died in Milan in 1979.