Love the bones of this Carlo Mollino desk? It’s coming quickly from Zanotta

In the present day in Milan (15 April 2026), Italian design model Zanotta introduced that it has secured the unique rights to supply a sequence of designs by Carlo Mollino (1905-73), marking a big addition to the corporate’s historic archive. Granted by the Italian State following a public tender, the acquisition contains the licence to supply 30 works by the Turin-born polymath, alongside the tens of 1000’s of authentic drawings and sketches in his archive.

The transfer builds on a long-standing relationship (since 1981) between Zanotta and Mollino’s property and archive, which the model has helped convey to wider consideration by means of rigorously researched re-editions over a number of many years. Now, for the primary time, a bigger physique of his designs meant for industrial manufacturing will probably be developed and manufactured underneath a single licence.

Lively throughout structure, images and design, Mollino stays one of many extra singular figures in Twentieth-century Italian tradition, recognized for furnishings outlined by natural, nearly anatomical types and a surreal design language. He didn’t sometimes design furnishings for mass manufacturing throughout his lifetime, preferring to make use of artisans and small-scale producers. In consequence, lots of his items have develop into extremely prized collectors’ objects.

To coincide with Milan Design Week 2026, Zanotta will current the primary industrially produced piece from this newly acquired archive: the ‘Vertebra’ desk from 1950. Beforehand realised in simply two examples that have been offered at public sale, the sinuous design now enters serial manufacturing for the primary time. Its skeletal construction and flowing strains show how Mollino regarded furnishings as an extension of the physique – an curiosity formed by his parallel pursuits as a skier, racing driver and aviation fanatic.

The launch types a part of a wider exhibition staged on the model’s By way of Durini, Milan showroom, curated by studio Calvi Brambilla, Zanotta’s artwork director. Alongside ‘Vertebra’, which will probably be positioned inside a devoted eating setting, the show revisits key Mollino designs together with the ‘Ardea’ armchair, ‘Fenis’ chair, ‘Gilda’ armchair and ‘Arabesco’ desk – items which have beforehand been reissued by the corporate as a part of its ongoing archival programme.

The set up’s design, Zanotta teases, is impressed by ‘natural types of the human physique mixed with the dynamism of motion throughout snow, monitor, and sky’, however will even draw on Mollino’s interiors, the place curtains have been used to loosely outline an area.

Along with the 30 design drawings, Mollino’s skilled archive contains almost 17,000 graphic plates, technical drawings and sketches. It additionally contains roughly 15,000 images, over 70 handwritten and typewritten paperwork, and an in depth assortment of private {and professional} correspondence, all at present housed on the Polytechnic College of Turin’s School of Structure, the place he served as Professor of Architectural Composition.

The announcement comes at a second of renewed momentum for the model, following its acquisition by Cassina in 2023, a transfer that signalled a brand new chapter for Zanotta and its positioning inside a broader Italian design ecosystem. The corporate has more and more positioned archival analysis as an energetic a part of its operations by bridging historic materials with present-day manufacturing – reissued designs by Giuseppe Terragni and Gabriele Mucchi are additionally a part of its assortment.

Extra broadly, Zanotta notes that the acquisition marks ‘an necessary milestone within the trade between private and non-private entities’ within the stewardship of design heritage – one which extends past preservation to questions of authorship, manufacturing and relevance right now.