The Yale School of Architecture presents a virtual lecture by Napoleone Ferrari and Michelangelo Sabatino on Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino (1905–1973). A polymath in sports and intellectual pursuits—from an aerobatic pilot to a professor at the Polytechnic of Turin—Mollino is known for expressionism, surrealism and elements of magic realism in his work. In the 1930s he was one of few architects to introduce elements of surrealist art and culture into the Modern Movement. Mollino’s buildings, interiors and furniture are known for their elegance, mystery, sensuality, and emotion. Nature was a strong influence and mountains were a favorite setting for his buildings. Some of his most significant buildings include offices of the Farmers’ Federation Cuneo (1935), Horse Riding Club of Turin (1940), Turin’s Chamber of Commerce, and Regio Opera House–both completed in 1973.

The lecture coincides with an exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and now on view at the Yale School of Architecture. Titled Radical: Italian Design 1965–1985, it showcases Italian architects and designers who, like Mollino, lived through turbulent global events of the 1960s which inspired avant-garde architectural thought and design.

Napoleone Ferrari earned a degree in philosophy with a specialization in aesthetics from the University of Turin and in 1999 he co-founded the Museo Casa Mollino with Fulvio Ferrari. Since that date, he has been working to gather vast archives concerning every aspect of Italian architect Carlo Mollino’s life and work. Ferrari is the author of nine books on Mollino, among which are the catalogue raisonné of his furniture design, three books that cover all Mollino’s photographic oeuvre, and the catalog of the 2006 Mollino retrospective, which he also co-curated, held at Turin’s Gallery of Modern Art and at Castello di Rivoli Contemporary Art Museum. He is currently president of the Museo Casa Mollino. He recently co-authored Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller (with Michelangelo Sabatino).

Michelangelo Sabatino is an architectural historian, curator, and preservationist whose research and writing focuses primarily on modern architecture and the built environment. He is Professor of Architectural History and Cultural Heritage at IIT’s College of Architecture where he directs the PhD program and is the inaugural John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow. Sabatino’s first book, Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy (2011), won multiple awards, including the Chicago-based Society of Architectural Historians’ Alice Davis Hitchcock Award. More recent books include Canada: Modern Architectures in History (with Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, 2016), Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony (with Ben Nicholson, 2019), Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses 1929–1975 (with Susan Benjamin, 2020), Making Houston Modern: The Life and Architecture of Howard Barnstone (with Barrie Scardino Bradley and Stephen Fox, 2020), and Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller (with Napoleone Ferrari, 2021). Sabatino serves as a director on the Docomomo US Board.

Thursday February 24, 6:30 pm
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