In 1963, Alberto Ponis decided to return to Italy after his experience in London at Denys Lasdun's studio, settling permanently in Palau and devoting himself to building holiday homes in Gallura, in the north of Sardinia.
Some of the most representative examples of his aesthetic language, which over a period of forty years has become the school of Sardinian holiday architecture, would soon be born in Costa Paradiso. 

Using the stazzo gallurese (stable) as the key to interpreting the deep relationship between the cultural heritage of Sardinian territory and the surrounding nature, Ponis made this latter the catalyst of his architectural approach. In his designs, in fact, natural elements — rocks, cliffs, trees — shape architectures that are always conceived in deep harmony with the site on which they are built.

This year, Ponis is being awarded the Medal of the City of Genoa, and from 12 October the Villa Croce museum of contemporary art is hosting the exhibition "Alberto Ponis: Building in Nature", curated by architectural historian Emanuele Piccardo.

The exhibition is the result of two years of work in the Ponis Archive, and meticulously reconstructs a lifelong design research, dividing it into four sections: Architecture, Alberto Ponis Archive, Painting and Travel.
It explores Ponis' production of single-family and group homes between 1963 and 2006, breaking it down into the various influences that shaped his architectural vision: drawing, surveying activity, landscape painting, Brutalist architecture, and the vernacular landscape of Sardinian architecture.