Part 2
Mollino reproduces the old stone base which contains a larger volume of wood, with a cantilever of about two metres on two opposite sides. Historical and architectural features, the two buildings are separated by a gap, an empty space, where there are ten grey granite mushrooms, 50 cm high (bolero in Valdostano patois), formed by a trapdoor, a hat, and a foot, i.e. a foot, resting on the stone base thanks to the cement thrown into a hollow beam which itself rests on the top of the wall. The gable roof with slate slabs completes the whole at a height of five and a half metres. The car registration document, a typical construction of some valleys in the Aosta Valley, was used to store cereals and grain. To avoid the rise of mice and moisture from the bare earth to the barn, it did not rest on the bare stone, but on these mushroom-shaped granite pillars, which, having lost their original function, are preserved by Mollino as a constructive and stylistic element: an almost allotropic, perhaps ironic or simply evocative of the ancient work of farmers in these austere valleys.
Meanwhile, all over the perimeter of the pillars, Mollino slips a continuous wooden window, reinterpreting in an alpine key a ribbon window that owes much, according to the authors, to the openings of the Haus am Horn lounge, the prototype house designed by Walter Grappins for the Boloss exhibition in 19236. Thus, between 1963 and 1965, Mollino seized a relic of Valle d'Aosta folk architecture and reinvented it in his own way, reconciling past and present, tradition and innovation. Like a handyman, he dismantled the Garelli cabin and moved it up the other side of the valley, adding a new base, with a stone access staircase, a car door, a pedestrian door, and a series of tall narrow windows, with a stone threshold and square-section metal grids. At first, he thought of a reinforced concrete construction, but then he ended up using natural stone. For the exterior staircase, large larch beams were used and a trampoline structure was invented consisting of a concrete beam with thirteen wooden steps resting on two continuous metal strips, while the ramp, made of white metal tube, was attached to the beam at four points. The result is futuristic: it looks like the scale of a strange spaceship to embark passengers ready to take off for a journey through time, write Laura Milan and Sergio Passé.
Inside, the grid defined by the boleros dictates the trace of the walls, almost all of which are load-bearing, and the layout of the various spaces. Here, the genius of Mollino, who has the task of transforming a barn from the 17th century into a holiday home in the 20th century, the century of mass tourism, is prodigious. It develops the space on three floors, organized around a central service nucleus, which houses the staircase stone in the base and wood on the upper floor , the corridors and a cavity where they pass part of the plants and the fireplace. It is the backbone of the whole cabin, unprecedented compared to the existing (date). On the ground floor, Mollino has a Thun stove that provides an air heating system, and is a very chic piece of furniture with its green terracotta tile covering in relief that from the ground floor is also available on the upper floors, interrupting the wooden roof of the walls. On the ground floor too, there is a small garage, a space for house staff and the tamil, as he himself indicates in his drawings, which is an informal meeting place for the family and guests. On the first floor, beyond the entrance and bathroom, there is a kitchen, dining room and lounge, overlooking the village and the Mont Rose massif, while on the second floor there is the sleeping area, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The reconstruction of the Garelli cabin is in short a tour de force that testifies to a concern for maniacal detail.
For example, Mollino designs the doors and gates on the ground floor: he manufactures them in wood, with aluminium alloy elements, which in turn are fixed with wrought iron nails. And the wrought iron comes back for the interior and exterior handles. Finally, also in Champoluc, as in Certifia for the Casa Des Soles, Mollino designs all the wooden furniture: bunk beds, bedside tables with shelves, chairs. The authors of this study have the merit of having accurately identified, thanks to the work in the archives, not only the building materials, such as larch, Luserna stone and Malanaggio, but all the workers and companies that contributed to the realization of the Mollino project, such as the carpenter Luigi Tesio or the company Silvio Costa who produces the Tapiflex coating in the kitchen.
At the end of the construction, Felice Garelli was so satisfied that he asked Mollino for an intervention for the family tomb in San Genuario, in the Vercelli region. I attach the photo of the villain's card and wait to know the day when you can go there to see the finished work. We are all satisfied, but your judgment would make us happier, he wrote to him on July 27, 19698. Then, at the end of 1971, he turned again to his architect friend for two garages next to the cabin: You don't have to disturb a Mollino for such a construction, but after so much reflection, I'm afraid to make a mistake, so I prefer one of your projects, you, do it? In June 1972, Mollino gave him a varnish with the drawing of a detailed project in a square plan for two cars, which will however never be realized. These are years of overwork for him, he is struggling with the Chamber of Commerce project, a suspended glass prism, and with the reconstruction of the Teatro Regio in Turin, for which he thought of the shape of a woman's chest, with a completely round interior, like an egg.
A very original designer, Mollino has scrupulously respected the laws of architectural discipline and redefined them with audacity and maximum expressive freedom. She had method, culture and imagination, she innovated by preserving and preserving innovation. The story of Garelli, a relic brought back to life, entrusted to a new mission, proves it: like a magician, Mollino was able to recompose, if only in fragments, past and present. For those who seek to reconcile experimentation with respect for archaic architecture, its lesson remains a model.