Unique Games Table, from Casa M.T., Turin, 1951

Franco Campo and Carlo Graffi were introduced to Carlo Mollino while studying architecture at the Polytechnic of Turin in the late 1940s. In these two young students Mollino sensed a kinship of spirit and invited them to work alongside him, encouraging them to create their own furniture designs, that were executed by the same Apelli & Varesio workshop that Mollino himself employed to execute his own furniture. The range of designs conceived by Campo and Graffi displayed a surrealistic spirit, often referencing anthropomorphic structures that were invested with sensuality, and contributing to the ‘Turinese Baroque’ style that briefly flourished in that city during the early 1950s.

Casa M.T., a private commission for a residential villa in Turin constitutes one of the earliest projects the two architects undertook after receiving their degrees in architecture in 1951. The villa, which enclosed the family business offices on the lower level and two residential floors above, featured a noteworthy and radical outer structure of uncompromising geometric form. The solemn austerity of the architecture enclosed spacious open spaces, often unpartitioned although occasionally subdivided by glass walls. Diverging from the overall aesthetic of the architecture, the furnishings selected for the interior displayed anthropomorphic shapes which are characteristic of Franco Campo and Carlo Graffi’s early works. The present lot, a unique games table executed for the Casa M.T. interior constituted one of two main points of focus in the living space, with a set of four lounge chairs and a rare example of an ‘Arabesque’ coffee table designed by Carlo Mollino as the other. The furnishings presented clever similarities, both tables remarkably made in plywood with tempered glass tops, each paired with sumptuously shaped, freeform seats and all impeccably executed by the Apelli & Varesio workshops.