Mollino’s 'Vertebra' returns

Zanotta has secured the rights to produce 30 Carlo Mollino works and will put his “Vertebra” table into production for the first time during Milan Design Week 2026. (zanotta.prezly.com, wallpaper.com) The company said on April 15 that it obtained the exclusive license through an Italian state public tender and added original drawings, sketches and projects from Mollino’s archive to its holdings. Zanotta said the release centers on 30 works by the Turin-born architect, designer and photographer. (zanotta.prezly.com) The public debut lands in a tightly defined Milan window: Milan Design Week runs from April 20 to April 26, 2026, and the Salone del Mobile fair at Rho Fiera runs from April 21 to April 26. Salone’s official site calls the 2026 edition the 64th and places it at the Milan Fairgrounds in Rho. (comune.milano.it, salonemilano.it, salonemilano.it) “Vertebra” is not a new drawing pulled from nowhere. Wallpaper reported that Zanotta had already been working with Mollino’s heirs and archives, and this acquisition formalizes a broader production plan around works that had remained outside regular manufacture. (wallpaper.com) The table also arrives with a strong auction-era backstory. Agnes Select wrote that a related large molded-plywood Mollino dining table in the Brooklyn Museum sold at Sotheby’s in October 2020 for more than $6 million, while the 1950 “Vertebra” made for the Lattes publishing house is described there as the completed version of that idea. (agneselect.com) Mollino has been part of Zanotta’s catalog before, but not on this scale. Zanotta says it first began reproducing his work in 1982, and older company material describes that effort as a long-running attempt to bring one-off or site-specific pieces into wider circulation. (nuovocollection.com, galeriemagazine.com) Mollino was born in Turin in 1905 and trained as an architect, but Zanotta’s own designer profile stresses how far his practice ranged, from interiors and furniture to photography, flying and car racing. That cross-disciplinary reputation has helped keep his furniture in both museum and collectible-design conversations long after his death in 1973. (zanotta.com) The immediate next step is simple: Milan opens on April 20, the fairgrounds open on April 21, and Zanotta now has a week to show whether a table long treated as a rarity can work as a live industrial product. (comune.milano.it, salonemilano.it)