The Furniture of Carlo Mollino - Hardcover

Ferrari, Napoleone; Ferrari, Fulvio

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0714845329 ISBN 13: 9780714845326

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Fulvio Ferrari has been studying the work and life of Carlo Mollino since the early 1980s, having organized the first exhibition of his work in 1985 and founded Museo Casa Mollino, Turin, 1999. He also curated 'Italian Design 1951-73' in 1984 in Munich and has published several books on the work of Mollino, the furniture of Gabetti & Isola, the ceramics of Ettore Sottsass and radical Italian lighting design of the late 1960s, among others. Napoleone Ferrari co-founded Museo Casa Mollino in Turin. He is co-author of two books on Mollino's photography, and of Luce, on Italian lighting design of the late 1960s.

Review:

"Sensual and surreal, the work of Carlo Mollino finally gets the book it deserves... Find page after gorgeous page of furniture... The best book about the best architect to design furniture written by the two people in the world who really know about him."-Nigel Coates, Spoon "Beautifully produced... With erudite essays by authors, [...], this gorgeous book is a must for every designer's library."-Emma Dent Coad, Building Design "[Mollino] got to photograph a lot of beautiful women, write a really good guidebook about downhill skiing, crash aeroplanes and race at Le Mans. Leonardo and Michelangelo, for all their sublime talents, never left such legacy."-Guardian "For admirers of Italian design [...] an invaluable purchase... Luxurious."-Blueprint "Where some designers strive for simplicity, [Mollino] delighted in complexity: a multi-layered character himself, his furniture is as convoluted and contorted as his view of life."-Crafts "If you call yourself a designer of furniture, you might be just that; on the other hand you might, like Carlo Mollino, be a 'mechanic, book-keeper, lawyer, boor, model of good manners, swallower of bitter pills, charmeur, dancing partner of elderly ladies and snake charmer' during those moments when you are not immersed in bouts of poetic creativity."-Timothy Brittain-Catlin, World of Interiors

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0714845329
• ISBN 13: 9780714845326
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240