From the book "L'architettura presa per mano" (Hand on architecture) by Stefano Casciani, Idea Books, Milan, 1992

The doorhandle has long been a familiar object for Ponti: inseparably related to a classic design method, he could not abstain from seizing the opportunity - whenever it arose - to re-design every detail of an interior or architecture. His frantic drive to renew the world of the object was too strong; his bourgeois-futuristic approach was to make him one of the first trailblazers of Italian design.

As early as in 1936, when projecting the first Montecatini office building, Ponti designed "everything": architecture, installations, furniture, bathroom appliances and - naturally doorhandles: the latter, manufactured by Olivari, became the E42. The Cono was the result of an even more specific occasion: the designing of the Villa Planchart at Caracas (1954), one of Ponti's most phantasmagoric examples of a decorative explosion, its being part of an extremely rich and varied layout notwithstanding. In this richness the Cono almost disappears, intentionally, according to the concept of transparency held in so high regard by Ponti.

Villa Planchart, Caracas (1954)

Also the Anello and Lama models represent this concept in different ways.

"Architecture is a crystal"; the objects required for its use are camouflaged; they taper, and become empty: as the handles of the cutlery (1955) or the facades of the buildings designed in the sixties (the Chapel of the San Carlo Borromeo hospital of Milan, 1965; Art Museum of Denver, 1966).

In Ponti's designs for Olivari he has camouflaged his ability as an able magician of the form: the Lama is one of the most ethereal forms featured in the company's catalogues. Ponti continued utilizing this doorhandle in many buildings over the years, alternately with Cono and Anello: only the Lama model was to remain in production after the death of the designer. An unforgettable memento of a bygone golden age of Italian design.