Teatro Mollino

The film is a sort of portrait of the polymath Carlo Mollino (1905-73). Molino was a product of the city from which he came, Torino, where this film was shot. Originally commission for a presentation at Design Miami Basel it looks at two of Mollino’s most important projects; The Teatro Regio and the Casa Mollino.Mollino’s fabulous and decadent Teatro Regio (1965-73) is a masterpiece of a concert hall, a cathedral of sumptuous red velvet and has a vast crystalline chandelier spanning nearly the entire surface of the concave ceiling. It brings together the traditions of Italian opera house design of the kind seen in Milan’s La Scala but is also completely new and has about it something of a David Lynch film. The second part of the film looks at the apartment he created (though never live in) built in the late 60’s and overlooking the river Po. As Fulvio Ferrari says in his interview Mollino made it ‘entirely for himself’.  Now a museum the Casa Mollino is part bachelor pad, part stage set, part artist’s studio, but more than any of those it is fantasy made real. Source (milanodesignfilmfestival.com)