Zanotta – Reale black oak table and glass top not bevelled edges 90×200

Who knows what Carlo Mollino would have been capable of today, with access to carbon fibres or other composite materials, if in the 1950s he was able to create, using only solid wood and capable artisans, slender, lean and slim structures, equalled only in the contemporaneous constructions of Franco Albini, and the lightened struts of his Veliero bookshelf?

Articulate and complex shapes, but which once understood can astonish owing to the constructive intelligence of a perfect mechanism where every element slots together, matching, twinlike with precision to the others, through precise (and custom-design) metal joint systems. True masterpieces, like the Reale table, created with a compact, transparent skeleton embellished with a crystal top that seems to frame it.

Carlo Mollino

Carlo Mollino (Turin, 6 May 1905 - Turin, 27 August 1973) was an Italian architect, designer, photographer, and pilot. Born in Turin, the only son of engineer Eugenio Mollino, in 1925 he enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering and, after a year, moved to the Royal School of Architecture of the Albertina Academy of Turin, later became the Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic of Turin, where he graduated in July 1931 and where he carried out much of his activity.

Extraordinary case of designer not related to industry, Mollino was photographer, graphic designer, engineer, set designer, great sportsman and great skier, so much so that he was appointed director of Coscuma (commission of schools and ski instructors) and to write, in 1951, The treatise Introduzione al discesismo from whose pages all his restless, imaginative and bizarre personality emerges. In addition, in 1953, he founded the Institute of Mountain Architecture, to which is linked much of his projects.

Among his most famous architectural projects in Turin: the Società Ippica Torinese, Turin (1937, demolished in 1960); the auditorium hall of the RAI (1948); the war memorial for freedom (1948); the INA-Casa district of Corso Sebastopoli; the Chamber of Commerce (1964, completed in 1972); Casa Fiorini (1957, finished in 1961); renovation of the Turin-Aeritalia Airport building (1958); reconstruction of the Teatro Regio, with M. Zavelani Rossi and C. Graffi (1965, inaugurated in 1973).
Other works outside Turin: Union Provincial Farmers, Cuneo (1933); Slittovia del lago Nero, Sauze d'Oulx (1946); Villa Cattaneo Agra (Varese, 1952); house for apartments, Aosta (1953); Casa del Sole, Cervinia (1955).

Mollino died suddenly in 1973, while still in business, in his studio.

Zanotta

Founded in 1954, Zanotta is recognized as one of the major protagonists of the history of Italian design. In particular since the 1960s, guided by the intuition and extraordinary entrepreneurial ability of its founder Aurelio Zanotta, conquer the international scene thanks to emblematic products for formal innovation. The technological research supported by the continuous evolution of the quality of materials and production processes is one of the best in the world.

The cultured and precious history of Zanotta is renewed in 2017 in the union with Tecno starting a common project. This implies the consequent strengthening of synergies and commercial strategies at the international level under the guidance of Giuliano Mosconi. It brings irony to the domestic universe, which suggests different ways to feel better in the world of the home, which for the first time has included in its catalog the works of the great masters of design, creating an unparalleled "collection" of masterpieces, awarded and exhibited in the most important design museums.