The Sala da Pranzo or dining room and the Sala del Caminetto, the fireplace room, are separated by a pocket sliding door. When open, the two rooms become a single space. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the Second World War prevented its use, but it is easy to imagine a group of academics sliding back the doors and, pipe in hand, heading to the fireside.

Behind them, some will still be lingering at the dining table, perhaps waiting for a last coffee to come through the mirrored serving hatch that opens into what used to be the kitchen. Or perhaps lost in philosophical conversations with other diners.

This fluid organization of domestic spaces allowed Gio Ponti to design rooms with different uses but nonetheless sharing furnishings, structural detail and decor. They were then built, adapting them to the ever-changing needs of those who lived there. Typical of Gio Ponti in this sense, we see the modular dining table that could be extended to seat various numbers of diners.

The Sala da Pranzo features six large works by Padua painter Antonio Fasàn, still lifes with the symbols of the university faculties and views of the buildings where they reside. These include the composition visible in front of the entrance and dedicated to the Faculty of Letters, which is housed in Palazzo Liviano, created by Gio Ponti himself.

In the Sala del Caminetto an eye-catching piece of furniture on the right wall has curious oblique shelves, used for telephone directories, relics of a now distant analogue past that were usually piled up under the telephone itself. But not if Gio Ponti had a say in the matter!

One last gem is the small card table near the fireplace with drawers designed as pull-out ashtrays, a reminder of times when it was acceptable to smoke.