Indeed, to behold one of Mollino’s designs is to enter a realm infused with inspiration—French

Dining room at Museo Casa Mollino, Torino, Italy.

Surrealism, of course, but also nature and the human body, Egyptian antiquities, classical and Baroque architecture, Art Nouveau, Italian Futurism, mythology, alchemy and the occult. Mollino’s organic sculpted-wood and bent- plywood furniture, in his updated Turinese Baroque style, can evoke at one moment a tree branch or animal horn or skin, and in the next a skeletal vertebra or the sensual contours of the female form. Whether a chair, table, desk, bed, lamp or coat hanger, Mollino’s dazzling designs appear to come alive in an exuberant synthesis of form and function. Lending credence to his declaration, “Everything is permissible as long as it is fantastic,” these singular creations merge the phantasmagoric playfulness of Antoni Gaudí with the sleight-of-hand showmanship of Man Ray. Among his most celebrated designs are the “Gaudí chair,” made of shaped solid maple, and Arabesque tables with undulating plywood bases and biomorphic glass tops.

“Mollino was a master of duality who championed the avant-garde yet did not completely break with the past,” says Fulvio Ferrari, an Italian design scholar, founder of the Museo Casa Mollino (Mollino House Museum) in Turin and author, along with his son, Napoleone, of The Furniture of Carlo Mollino, Complete Works. “Like the great Art Deco and Viennese designers who came before him, he integrated both modern and classical design elements into complete environments for an elite clientele. Whereas many mid-century designers worked for large manufacturers who mass-produced their designs, most of Mollino’s furnishings are site-specific, one-off pieces created for specially commissioned interiors, which adds to their allure.”

Mollino’s eclectic, unifying vision is evident in the Museo Casa Mollino, a 19th-century apartment that he renovated and furnished for himself in the mid-1960s and which is now open to the public. Here, a Louis XV–style fireplace and classical marble-column dining table coexist with fiberglass Tulip chairs by Eero Saarinen and modern furnishings by Mollino and other Italian designers. Though the home bears Mollino’s theatrical stamp, it is nevertheless more understated than many of the private and public commissions he completed around Turin, notably the Devalle House (1939–40), the Minola House (1944–46), the Orengo House (1949–50) and the Lutrario Ballroom (1959–60). Displaying Mollino’s love of bold colors; sumptuous materials such as richly grained hardwoods, animal hides and velvet drapes and upholstery; and reflective surfaces including gilding, mirrors and polished metal, these fantastical interiors could have tumbled out of a Fellini film.

Mollino’s eccentric flamboyance was balanced by a sophisticated understanding of technology and consummate engineering skills. (He was renowned for being able to draw with both hands simultaneously.) After graduating from the University of Turin School of Architecture in 1931, he worked briefly for his father, Eugenio, one of the city’s most prominent engineers. Rossella Colombari, a Milan-based dealer specializing in modern Italian design, recalls her antiques dealer– father’s friendship with Mollino: “He was a high-energy person, nervous, with a short attention span. And he liked to study the baroque furniture in my father’s Turin gallery.”