Gio Ponti & Nino Zoncada Biography
Giovanni “Nino” Zondaca (1898 - 1988) was an Italian furniture designer. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and worked for a long time designing furniture and interiors for luxury ships. As with other important Italian designers, such as Gio Ponti, Gustavo Pulitzer-Finale, Paolo de Poli, Pietro Chiesa and Gino Sarfatti, among others, Nino Zoncada has been involved in many interior and furniture design projects for ocean liners. Zoncada began his career in 1923 when he began working in the interior and furnishings department of the Triestino Naval Shipyard in Monfalcone. He would become one of its directors by the end of the 1930s. At the end of the 1940s, Nino Zoncada collaborated with Gio Ponti on the interior design of the cruise ships Conte Biancamano and Conte Grande. In addition to designing nearly the entire fleet of the Italian cruise ship Costa Crociere in the 1940s and 1950s, Zoncada designed or contributed to nearly every major Italian ocean liner between the 1950s and 1960s, including Giulio Cesare, Augusto , Andrea Doria, Critoforo Colombo Navi, Leonardo da Vinci and Stella Solaris His furniture collections were distributed in the United States by Altamira New York. Among his most famous furniture designs are his iconic, richly upholstered armchairs with relatively high, curved armrests and his portable wooden tables with marble bases.
