Original and inventive, the work of Carlo Mollino (1905-73) is a unique chapter in the history of twentieth-century Italian design and architecture. For the first time, this book presents his complete works in furniture and interior design. Most of Mollino's furniture was site specific with one-off pieces created for specially commissioned interiors. Rarely available, these works are highly sought after by collectors and design enthusiasts alike. From the start, both Mollino's interests and personality set him apart from his contemporaries. Influenced by the Second Futurism and Surrealist avant-gardes, Mollino was a modern-day Renaissance man active in an impressive number of fields, including aeronautics, automobile design, art, photography, set design, town planning, furniture, interior decoration and architecture. Through his extensive artistic research, he was able to combine various contrasting forms of expression, which gave his work a remarkable and unusual dynamic. His furniture was based on organic shapes, such as tree branches, animal horns and the human body - with the female profile figuring prominently in his designs. Beyond this highly personal aesthetic, his work involved research into materials and technology, and the development of complex construction techniques, as with the celebrated bent plywood 'Arabesque' table of 1950. Illustrated with original drawings, sketches and archival photographs, The Furniture of Carlo Mollino represents the most comprehensive record of Mollino's design production. Realized in collaboration with the Museo Casa Mollino and written by the Museum's curators, Napoleone and Fulvio Ferrari, this monograph offers an insight into Mollino's groundbreaking oeuvre.

The Furniture of Carlo Mollino

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Ferrari, Fulvio

Ferrari, Napoleone

Antiques & Collectibles

Phaidon Press

Carlo Mollino (1905-73), the son of a prominent engineer of the city of Turin, graduated with honors from the Royal School of Architecture in Turin in 1931. He joined his father's firm in the same year, only to leave to pursue an independent and highly original career in design and architecture seven years later. From the start, both his interests and personality set him apart from his contemporaries. Influenced by the Second Futurism movement and the Surrealist avant-gardes, he was active in an impressive number of fields, including aeronautics, automobile design, art, photography, set design, town planning, furniture, interior decoration and architecture. Highlights from his architectural output include the headquarters of the Societa Ippica Torinese (1935-9) and the Teatro Regio Torinese (1966), both in Turin. Mollino was able to bring together various forms of expression through his profound artistic research. His furniture was based on organic shapes, such as tree branches, animal horns and the human body - the female profile figuring prominently in his design work. These pieces evolved from the appreciation of the shapes of Art Nouveau and the architect Antoni Gaudi, and were more expressive and sculptural than those being produced in Milan at the same time. Most of his furniture designs were site specific one-offs for especially commissioned interiors and were manufactured by the Apelli &amp; Varesio joinery in Turin. This has ensured that these pieces are very rarely available on the market and are highly valued by furniture collectors, as proven by the recent sale at Christie's of one of Mollino's tables for the record price of $3.8 million. Beyond the sculptural aesthetics of his furniture, his designs involved thorough research into materials and technology. He developed a complex construction technique whereby the structure seemed liberated by the weight of the material, as clearly seen in the glass and bentwood Arabesque table (1949), still in production by Zanotta. His famous interiors were richly decorated with fabric, used not only as upholstery but also as spatial device. He aimed to create architecture and interiors that could be manipulated by the user, as with the innovative lighting system for the Miller House (1937), which was mounted on a curving track and could be moved along the ceiling of the house. The Furniture of Carlo Mollino presents for the first time Mollino's complete furniture and interior design. Including drawings and archival photographs, it represents the most comprehensive record of this part of Mollino's production. Realized in collaboration with the Museo Casa Mollino and written by the Museum's curators Napoleone Ferrari and Fulvio Ferrari, this monograph emphasizes the contemporary significance of Mollino's groundbreaking oeuvre.

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Carlo Mollino (1905–1973) was one of the most inspired mid-20th-century architects and designers. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Mollino designed buildings, homes, cars, aircraft, women’s fashion, and theater sets. He was a renaissance man who sought to articulate movement and sensuality in his designs. Even more compelling are the magically surreal Polaroid images Mollino made in his Turin studio during the last 14 years of his life, seen here in the first-ever collection of Mollino’s carefully honed erotic photographs of women. From 1,500 works, the Ferraris have culled over 250 representative images in which Molino posed his models in evocative clothing, staged the backdrops, and finally, altered the photos with a microscopic paintbrush to attain his ideal view of the female form. Only a few of Mollino’s Polaroids have ever been viewed by the public.

Carlo Mollino: Polaroids

Individual Artists

Arena Editions

<div>Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino (1905-73) is known to many for his furniture designs. Although none of Mollino's designs were mass-produced, they command high prices among collectors of twentieth-century furniture and are part of the collections of major design museums. Others recall Mollino for his large secret stash of erotic Polaroids, taken throughout the 1960s and recovered among his personal effects after his death. The risqué photos have been the subject of several exhibitions and have inspired fashion designers, including Jeremy Scott, who drew on them when creating a recent collection for Moschino. Much less attention has been devoted to Mollino's contribution to architecture. With Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller, Napoleone Ferrari and Michelangelo Sabatino offer the first carefully researched and comprehensive study of Mollino's architectural work. Drawing on rich archival materials, as well as Mollino's own writings, they argue persuasively that, while Mollino realized relatively few projects, his contributions to architecture--and, in particular, the modernist movement--are both significant and distinctive due to Mollino's strong affinity with surrealism. The book features both built and unrealized projects, including masterpieces like the Teatro Regio and the Torino Chamber of Commerce and early, lesser-known works like the Torino Horse Riding Club and the Lago Negro chairlift station in the Italian Alps. Lavish illustrations and essays by Ferrari and Sabatino round out this overdue tribute to an extraordinary personality of twentieth-century architecture. &nbsp;</div>

Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller

Sabatino, Michelangelo

Park Books

Carlo Mollino (1905-1973) was possessed of both tremendous energy and incredibly diverse abilities: famed as an architect and furniture designer, he was also a writer, photographer, race-car driver and downhill skier. His private life was no less intense. Mollino had a closely guarded obsession with erotic portraiture, and would regularly invite prostitutes from the streets of Turin to come to his home and pose for him. The scenes were carefully prepared: the models would dress (or partially undress) in costumes, accessories and wigs that Mollino had acquired on trips to France or Southeast Asia, and pose before backdrops of drapery, screens and sculptural furniture. Despite the furtive circumstances of their production, these portraits express the aesthetics of Mollino's more public photographs, as the models appear more statuesque than pornographic. Likewise, the opulent interiors and opulent furnishings of Mollino's private homes in Turin, the Villa Zaira and what is now known as Casa Mollino serve as crucial components of the compositions. In 1962, Mollino began to employ Polaroid film for these shoots, eventually making some 1,300 exposures before his death in 1973. Neither these nor the silver gelatin works that preceded them were published in his lifetime, and this is the first publication of these Polaroids.

Carlo Mollino: Un Messaggio dalla Camera Oscura

Gehrmann, Lucas

Photography & Video

Moderne Kunst Nürnberg

In a career that spanned more than four decades, Carlo Mollino designed buildings, homes, furniture, cars and aircraft. One of the most dashing figures of mid-century Italy, Mollino was famed for his design finesse and his elegant organicism. In 1949 he published an important book on photography: Message from the Darkroom. Sometime around 1960, he began to seek out women-mostly dancers-in his native Turin, inviting them to his villa for late-night modeling sessions. The models would pose against extraordinary backdrops, designed by Mollino, in clothing, wigs and accessories that he had carefully selected. Finally, having printed the Polaroids, Mollino would painstakingly amend them with an extremely fine brush, to attain his idealized vision of the female form. The pictures, which totaled around 1,200, remained a secret until after his death, in 1973. Only a few were ever publically shown, until the acclaimed first edition of this volume was published by James Crump in 2002. Reviewing that book, The New Yorker declared, "This lavish selection of several hundred Polaroids preserves the essential mystery of a project both decadent and hermetic. Though clearly the product of a deep obsession, the photographs are deliberately impersonal, each baroque detail an invitation for the viewer to imagine Mollino's encounters with the women." Now back in print, with a newly designed cover, this beautiful volume offers a captivating portrait of a unique erotic sensibility. Carlo Mollino (1905-1973) studied mechanical engineering, art history and architecture before working in the architectural practice of his father, Eugenio Mollino, in Turin. His first architectural masterpiece was the Turin Equestrian Association headquarters (1937). In 1965 he designed the Teatro Regio in Turin, which is now regarded as one of his best works. A 1949 Mollino table was sold at auction by Christie's in 2005 for a staggering $3.8 million. In 1960-68 he designed an enigmatic apartment for himself that today has become the Museo Casa Mollino.

Curto, Silvio

Damiani/Crump

Mollino's work consists of 'unique pieces', from furniture to photographs. The elitist architect never produced editions of his photographs and he signed less than 40 , unique copies often retouched. From 1936 to 1973, his photographs, drawings and related historical objects reveal the 'photographic worlds' of Mollino: architecture, skiing and the important corpus of women's portraits, realized in three different periods: the years before the Second World War, the 1950s and the Polaroids of the 1960s/1970s. Since the 1930s Mollino considered photography an opportunity to work on his buildings again, enhancing them with every possible technical and literary artifice, still maintaining the authentic spirit of the buildings and interiors. Women?s portratits constitute the main subject of his photographs in the 1930s and 1940s.In his photographic work he did not simply portray his models; he left a message: a woman is the sum of a multiplicity of faces, bodies and expressions.

Carlo Mollino: With Naked Eye: Photographs 1934-1973

Alinari 24 Ore

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Books by Ferrari, Napoleone

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ferrari, Napoleone. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Furniture of Carlo Mollino

The Furniture of Carlo Mollino

Carlo Mollino: Polaroids

Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller

Carlo Mollino: Un Messaggio dalla Camera Oscura

Carlo Mollino: Polaroids

Carlo Mollino: With Naked Eye: Photographs 1934-1973