Living like Carlo Mollino

#110 A display at the Zanotta showroom renders homage to a maestro of modern architecture and the entrepreneur who discovered his forgotten projects. salone#2015

Beppe Finessi, Vista dell'allestimento “Omaggio a Carlo Mollino”, Zanotta

The Zanotta company, founded in 1954 by Aurelio Zanotta, has indubitably contributed in a great way to the history of Italian design. It has produced 550 projects by 120 designers including the highly regarded maestri Enzo Mari, Alessandro Mendini, Bruno Munari, Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Gio Ponti, Marco Zanuso, Gae Aulenti and Ettore Sottsass.

These facts testify to the spirit of curiosity and love of the new that has animated the company from day one. Its range features projects designed over an extended period of time – from the 1920s to today. Aurelio Zanotta’s keenness and intuition allowed him to discover and be the first to give prominence to Carlo Mollino, one of the most eclectic figures of the 20th century, whose pieces have been produced by Zanotta since the 1980s. In 1985, the company presented the Fenis chair as its first homage to Carlo Mollino.

Beppe Finessi, view of the exhibition “Omaggio a Carlo Mollino”, Zanotta — Calvi Brambilla, view of the exhibition “Omaggio a Carlo Mollino”, Zanotta

“Omaggio a Carlo Mollino” is precisely the title of an exhibition organised under the curatorship of Beppe Finessi at the Zanotta showroom in Milan, in remembrance of the brilliant designer.

The show is an opportunity for a full immersion into Mollino’s world, full of curved contours and organic frameworks. “His was an impassioned world and an intense life, lived as a challenge to the official historiography of design, which had difficulty classifying its leading figures,” states Finessi.

“All his work was aimed at pushing the envelope, without ever going off track. He was definitely a unique case. So amazingly unique that he invented special objects that did not exist before, always light years away from what the design world was accepting at a very slow pace. He worked on objects that had domestic presence, such as mirrors whose outline was a reference to classical art; headboards that reflect the passionate doings in the bed area; chairs, armchairs and nightstands that look like skeletal sculptures of bodies in movement; and tables that are still now record achievements of construction and concentrations of the skills of an honorary engineer.”