Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller

Join us for a conversation about the newly published book, Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller (Park Books, 2021), by co-authors Napoleone Ferrari and Michelangelo Sabatino.

Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino (1905-1974) was a transformational figure who synthesized cues from Expressionism, Futurism, Organicism, and Surrealism to shape his singular approach to modern design. Mollino is known to many for his furniture designs. Although none were mass-produced, his designs command high prices among collectors of 20th-century furniture and feature in 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 architectural projects, his contributions to the field—and, in particular, the modernist movement—are significant and distinctive. 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.

Many thanks to our Underwriter for this program, Rob Beyer.

Speakers:
Fulvio Ferrari, Founder, Museo Casa Mollino, Turin
Napoleone Ferrari, Director, Museo Casa Mollino, Turin
Michelangelo Sabatino, Professor and PhD Program Director, John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow, IIT College of Architecture

Respondent and Q&A Moderator:
Alicia Imperiale, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, Pratt Institute, School of Architecture

This event is offered in person proof of complete COVID-19 vaccination (for attendees ages 5 and up) with photo ID for adults is required to attend in person. Food and beverages will be served. Face masks are required for visitors ages 2-5, and optional for those vaccinated. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.