10 Things You Should Know About Carlo Mollino

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Carlo Mollino
  1. Mollino, in collaboration with his friend Mario Damonte, designed the aerodynamic 1955 Damolnar Bisiluro racing car which was to go on and hold the 750cc category record at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
  2. He was a pilot, a racing car driver, an expert downhill skier, an important photographer, an artist, a fashion designer, an author, a dabbler in the occult, an international traveler and an erotomaniac.
  3. Most of his architecture has been demolished or left to decay. After it ceased working, his unique cableway station for skiers in the Alps at Lago Nero was left to fall apart. Squatters soon moved in and used the interiors for firewood.
  4. Alpine architecture and territorial planning were so important to him that he set up the Istituto di Architettura Montana (Institute for Mountain Architecture).
  5. He began to race cars seriously as soon as he learned to drive.
  6. In the final years before his death in 1973 his preferred photographic medium was the Polaroid.
  7. Mollino personalized sandals designed by Bruno Magli and made by Italo Bruschi by adding strass brooches. The sandals are now part of the collection of Museo Casa Mollino.
  8. The bedroom, according to Mollino, was the 'erotic chamber' and thus only Louis XV furnishings were suitable. He believed that eighteenth century designers were the only ones who, 'knew how to wrap a woman in desire, giving the furnishings of the room the same grace as her own softly curving body...'
  9. An avid inventor, he held 15 patents in various fields including, but not limited to, drafting, interior design, building products, automobile related devices, and everyday objects such as a cigar lighter and the 'clothing protector fairing to bicycles'.
  10. 317 butterflies were arrayed in rows in front of his bed.
The Bisiluro



Further Reading:
Brino, Giovanni. 2005. Carlo Mollino: Architecture As Autobiography. New York: Thames & Hudson