Carlo Mollino was an Italian architect and designer whose works embodied his keen desire to break away from the monotony of everyday life.
Carlo Mollino: a biography
Carlo Mollino was born in 1905 in Turin. In 1929, he began to study art history at the University of Ghent in Belgium, but soon stopped and moved back to Italy. He then went to study architecture at the Politecnico di Torino, which he graduated from in 1931. Upon graduating, he started working at the engineering practice run by his father, Eugenio Mollino, where he led the entries to several architectural competitions. In 1934, he completed his first building in Cuneo, but it was his 1937 Società Ippica Torinese in Turin that is regarded as his first masterpiece. He also designed the interiors of the building, including much of its furniture. In 1947 he started teaching at his alma mater, the Politecnico di Torino, and a year later, designed the RAI Auditorium in the same city. Between 1952 and 1953, he built a house for Luigi Cattaneo in Luino, Italy, and in 1957 his furniture designs were exhibited for the first time at the Milan Triennale exhibition. He designed his own residence, Casa Mollino, in Turin between 1960 and 1968, which he also designed furniture for. Throughout his life, Mollino took a keen interest in photography, and his many Polaroids, often erotic in nature, were quite daring for the time.
The Casa Mollino
Casa Mollino features one of the most well-known interiors in Turin. It includes a large selection of Mollino furniture and surrealist objects collected by the designer, which are juxtaposed with opulent materials such as velvet and satin.
Carlo Mollino: chair designs
Carlo Mollino was heavily influenced by surrealism and the works of Salvador Dalí in particular, and this is quite evident in many of his chairs. Mollino used organic forms and eschewed overt formalism when designing his works. The chairs were made of wood and required precise craftsmanship and advanced manufacturing techniques to produce. The most famous Carlo Mollino chair is the Sedia per la Casa Cattaneo.
Carlo Mollino: table designs
ollino designed the Arabesco Table in 1949 for the Casa Orenga in Turin. For him, furniture was not a part of the architectural environment, but should be designed as an artistic object in and of itself. The dynamic, flowing shapes of the slim wooden frame, and the soft, organic outline of the glass table top are a manifestation of the high artistic standards Mollino applied in his work, as well as his taste for the sensual and the erotic. In 1950, Mollino altered the design of the Arabesco table especially for the cantine of the company Singer in Turin, where it served both as a table and a magasine rack.
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