An exhibition on Gio Ponti in Tokoname, Japan, gave Torafu a chance to re-interpret the Italian architect’s powerful modernism with a focus on subtle textures and surface design. To give it its full title – Giving Warmth to the Building Skin: The World of Gio Ponti, Father of Modern Italian Design – the exhibition looks at how Ponti integrated hand craft with machine production in four key elements: the interior wall, the window, the floor and the exterior wall.

Walls are placed ‘like pleats’ with varying heights to give visitors the impression of the domestic and the monumental at the same time. Torafu worked with local pottery craftsmen to recreate details and fragments of Ponti’s tile work.

Giving Warmth to the Building Skin: The World of Gio Ponti, Father of Modern Italian Design is at the INAX Tile Museum, 1 Chome-130 Okueicho, Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

Photos by Daici Ano