Fantastico Mollino

Originally published in Domus 270/May 1952


New furniture by Mollino
Anyone who has followed Mollino's career has been able to observe a transformation in his furniture that is like the development of an idea – the modified continuation of a discovery. From shaped and molded solid wood to bent and carved plywood; from the optical effect of momentum and tension to elasticity itself; from the construction of individual parts bolted together to the single piece to the continuous sheet of bent plywood.

And while, on the one hand, this could be a path towards simplification, on the other hand, Mollino-esquely, it is a fantastic opportunity to create exciting new complications.

It seems that Mollino's fantasy faced the synthetic possibilities offered by new technique, not to reduce design "to a minimum" but rather to multiply it by extracting all the possible new effects from the material and the technique. He explores. And the only immutable thing is the quality of his imagination. In these new forms, we find the animated and figurative quality that his object always have.

He personifies, creates characters, images, comparisons, definitions. His carved plywood chair, similar to an object polished by use or by a centuries-old stream, dramatically thinned, the armrest of his chair, the leg that widens like a plant, the continuous hieroglyph of his spectral and elastic table are all forms that refer to nature, not literally like the Liberty style, but by analogy - in other words poetically.