The exhibition, entirely dedicated to the great Turinese architect Carlo Mollino, will be held at the Modern Art Gallery GAM of Torino and at the Rivoli’s Castle, from September 20th 2006 to January 7th 2007.

The record car

Recently, during the constant activity of studying of Carlo Mollino's works, done by the Museum, have emerged new documents about the realization of a record car model, a futuristic attempt directed towards the speed record.

Stola Group, considered one of the most “ancient” Piedmontese companies able to combine the “workshop’s experience” with the uninterrupted technological evolution, wanted to pay tribute to the quality of Carlo Mollino achieving a 1:1 scale version of one of his two racing car’s plans.

The result is a 5.5 metres long car that will be exposed to the public, for the whole period of the exhibition, in the hall of the Torino Modern Art Gallery from September 20th 2006 to January 7th 2007.

Carlo Mollino's dining chairs (1959)	Carlo Mollino's Cavour writing desk (1949)

About Carlo Mollino

Carlo Mollino (1905 - 1973) has been a man with deep and diversified interests, a not ordinary artist: architect, acrobatic pilot, skier, photographer, interior designer, writer.

One of his greatest and life lasting loves was the one for speed and motoring, not just as a sport cars pilot but also – and mostly – as a designer and car planner, voted to the inexhaustible search of the perfect line, seduced by the myth of “record”, with a futurist taste, of whom still today, half a century after, we discover unpublished and surprising testimonies.

Among his things kept by the Mollino House Museum there is even a racing car’s model.

Carlo Mollino and Cars

Carlo Mollino on the Bisiluro (1955)
(Photo E. Invernizzi - Source GAMtorino.it) Carlo Mollino’s works dedicated to motoring world date back to the early 50s, works like the celebrated bus Silver Cloud (1954) commissioned by Agip-Gas, definitively discharged in the 90s, and the Bisiluro (1955), the racing car that allowed Carlo Mollino to get through the hard selection of the 24 Hours Le Mans Race (200 demands and just 63 qualifiers), remaining in the collective memory as stupendous and “spectacular” (this is the way the friend Luigi Licitra defined it in 1955).

But suddenly Mollino steered his attention to a new boundary, something that evolved in a way so interesting to involve an ever-increasing number of researchers and engineers: the speed record.

In 1947 an English pilot in a Railton had reached the speed of 655km/h. In this contest, in the mid 50s the Torinese architect undertakes the study and the aerodynamic analysis of innovative solutions: Mollino works to shatter the 634Km/h.

Carlo Mollino on an acrobatic plane (source: aeroclubtorino.it) An ambitious goal, really never achieved, probably for budget reasons. A few years later the creation of a new racing car, a Bluebird powered with a turbine, is going to cost to an English-American pool around 1 million pound, an incredible price!

Today, in a time when we are used to everything and to the overcoming of everything, when limits don’t exist, the model achieved by Stola rising from the mollinian idea still surprises.

The talent, the creativity of the Torinese artist, his futuristic intuitions, become fixed in the sinuous lines of the model, aerodynamic and futurist, with elusive strokes, that shows itself to the public in all his splendid simplicity.

The peculiarity is exactly in its essentiality, topicality and uniqueness that make it an excellent proof of how the search of perfection in means of transport can solve in art.

The Exhibition

The trusteeship of the exhibition is of the Mollino House Museum of Torino, founded by Fulvio and Napoleone Ferrari, engaged in Mollino’s figure development since 1985, in Italy and all over the world. Fulvio Ferrari supervised the first exhibition dedicated to the architect in Italy and, in 1994, the first photographic retrospective of Mollino in the United States. He is author of many monographs on the mollinian work published in Europe, USA and Japan.

The exhibition is equipped by an exhaustive illustrated catalogue with unpublished documents. The critical contributions, as well as the curators, are made by Paolo Portoghesi, Mario Federico Roggero, Lisa Ponti and Mario Verdun, authoritative studious of the work of Carlo Mollino.

For more information, visit the Modern Art Gallery GAM of Torino website.

About Stola Group

Conscious of the great patrimony made of tradition, honest thought, culture and seriousness in working that Torino and Piedmont have, Stola Group continues in his promotional activity of initiatives aimed to remind those deep “codes” able to generate and reborn passions, dreams and interest for creativity in young people.

Born in 1919 in Torino as a constructor of demonstrative models for foundry and motor industry, Stola is a leader group in engineering, design, production and construction of prototypes and concept-cars. Stola Group offers all the support necessary for the car industrialization, passing by all the steps, from the style models for presentations to the virtual models, from the planning (bodywork, mechanics, electrical and electronic systems) to the pre-series prototypes.

Through the operative centres displaced all over the world, Stola Group has built a real network of skilled companies able to offer a complete and high professional service: in Brazil with Stola Brazil, in China with Stola Asia, in the United States with Stola NA, in France with Estival and Stola France, up to Italy with IRMA, Stampi4 and head office of the group placed in province of Torino.

Stola Group has been took over by a pool of shareholders in 2004. The large stake is held by the RGZ Group, holding in the automotive sector which refer leading societies like Magneti Marelli aftermarket, Dayco F+F, Vagnone and Boeri. Today Stola Group represents a reality with more than 220 employees and a turnover of 250 million euros.

(Source: Stola)