Milan Design Week, the industry’s main and ever-stratified event, unfolded with theatrical installations, newly imagined products, and a strong showing of collectible design.

Anchored by the world’s largest and longest-running furniture fair Salone del Mobile—now in its 63rd year—Milan Design Week is unquestionably the most prominent event of its kind. While a handful of brands have begun to opt out of this behemoth in favour of more regional programmes like Copenhagen’s 3 Days of Design, most make Milan their main event. Joining them is an exhaustive raft of independent talents, collectives, architecture firms, creative agencies, galleries, schools, national organisations, cultural institutions, and increasingly, major players in other complementary industries: fashion, beauty, automotive, and even home appliances. 

With an estimated 400 thousand visitors descending on the northern Italian metropolis for a jam-packed six days and a who’s who of professionals filtering in as early as the Friday before, there’s always a decidedly captive audience to draw in. By the weekend, it’s more of a tourist attraction than anything else but before then, the international industry and domain—its own culture, really—affirms where it’s at, setting the tone for the year ahead. 

Though the angst of political and economic instability loomed large, the mood at this year’s edition (8—13 April) remained positive. Accountability and interdisciplinarity were common themes as many exhibitors staged their presentations with a theatrical tinge, released playfully innovative products, and debuted radical if still embellished propositions through the spectre of collectible design, a market that is increasingly being subsumed by fine art. Art Deco and its nuanced flex of ornamentation seemed to be a through-line but then again, trends are less and less homogeneous. Throughout the event and its hundreds of activations, many aesthetic and formal persuasions were at play. 

Dramatic Demonstrations

With elaborate scenography being all the rage at this year’s Milan Design Week, it was noted that avant-garde theatre director Robert Wilson’s re-lighting of Michelangelo’s unfinished Rondanini Pietà sculpture and a one-night-only performance at the grand Teatro La Scala led the charge. Both were presented as an overture to the fair which also programmed the Es Devlin-created Library of Light installation, rotating within one of the city centre’s many grand courtyards. In an almost similar skewed time scale and repetitional spoken-word format, leading design duo Formafantasma mounted the Staging Modernity performance for Italian furniture producer Cassina at the equally historic Teatro Lirico Giorgio Gaber. Visitors were part of the show as dancers and singers emerged from all directions on platforms outfitted with classic designs from the brand’s carefully managed roster. They recited texts and sang lyrics reflecting on the ideological and material implications of modernity on nature.  

Australian skincare brand Aesop sought to express the sensuality of this human organ with an immersive, smoke-filled installation replete with carefully textured facades and human hands emerging from within structures to caress these surfaces. All of these comprehensively conceived experiences provided visitors with a chance to slow down and take a break from the hectic pace of endless fair floor displays. Marimekko took this to heart. Teaming up with noted food artist Laila Gohar, the Finnish heritage brand launched new additions to its home textile collection with a large-scale sofa that visitors could lie in. Cushions interchanged from fabric to edible cake. Los Angeles-based interiors practice NUOVA Group revisited the interiors of the 1970s when imagining Range Rover’s display, elucidating the luxury car brand’s place in the canon of modernity.  

Deconstructed Domesticity

A similar treatment was evident in DimoreMilano‘s La Prima Notte di Quiete installation for fashion house Loro Piana. These vignettes were staged as home interiors from the same period. Broken china, strewn-about fruit and an unmade bed cheekily suggested that dramatic interactions had just occurred but the protagonist has since left the stage. 

Considering domestic space as the ideal backdrop to showcase a wide range of products—limited edition furnishings and accessories carefully crafted by an extensive roster of Italian artisans—important resource Artemest outfitted its third L’Appartamento showcase in an expansive Baroque-style flat, in collaboration with leading interior designers including Champalimaud Design, 1508 London and Simone Haag.

 Google tapped artist Lachlan Turczan to materialise the ethereal element of light with a series of interactive projections. Parisian gallery Boon Room brought together limited edition designs by a number of independent talents including Los Angeles-based Jialun Xiong, Vancouver-based luminaires brand AND Light, and a whole host of fine artists, hinting at how the boundaries between these two disciplines are increasingly fluid. 

On a more serious and thought-provoking note, renowned New York-based architecture practice Rockwell Group mounted Casa Cork, a holistic installation demonstrating the full potential of the naturally sourced sustainable material. Recently opened museum/incubator DropCity mounted an exhibition showcasing the various typologies of prison architecture and the inherent violence these components represent. Architecture and design are integral to many facets of life, not just high-end furniture. 

Products with Potential 

Standing out amid a cacophony of re-editioned furnishings that left a lot to be desired was Italian textile brand Dedar‘s deft rendition of seminal 20th century polymath Anni Albers‘ woven compositions. Proving that looking back to inform the future is always a good bet, the new offering comprises fabrics easily implemented in a wide range of home applications. The collection was expertly launched on the top floor of Gio Ponti’s iconic Torre Velasca. Beni Rugs—the boutique producer known for professionalising and giving fresh relevance to Moroccan weaving traditions—presented the new Intersections collection imagined by architecture firm Studio KO. The various pieces—showcasing the potential of different techniques—reference back to the papery nature of industrial offices from what appears to be the 1970s. Powerhouse Danish textile producer Kvadrat released the ocean plastic-derived Diade upholstery collection with a geometrically playful installation imagined by Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga. 

This year’s edition of the Salone del Mobile included the EuroLuce presentation debuting a wide range of new lighting products. Of note was Australian company Articolo Studio’s Cubo wall sconces, juxtaposing the rigidity of industrial metal with the idiosyncrasies of cast glass as a light-diffusing component. Ever the provocateur brand, Ingo Mauer launched the SHHH! pendant, a comical reinterpretation of the classic light bulb mixed in the form of present-day headphones. 

Non-Sequitur Novelties

What was once Ventura Lambrate—an entire neighborhood on the outskirt of town showcasing mostly emerging talents and student showcases—has become Alcova. Worth the 45-minute train ride out of town to the suburb of Varedo, this comprehensive ‘campus-wide’ showcase makes the most of grand-yet-somewhat-crumbling manor houses, villas, and repurposed industrial sites.

Among the exhaustive and eclectic showcase, highlights included up-and-coming practice Soft Witness‘s inaugural In Response furniture collection—decidedly deco-inspired luminaires, cleverly clustered sofas, and a room divider topped by clear glass floral finials. New York-based Greek talent Kiki Goti debuted her expressively blown-glass Grace vessels placed in dialogue with multivalent architecture practice Office of Tangible Space’s Osvaldo furniture collection. The “A Human Touch” showcase was a study in the interplay of artistry and industry. Fellow New York-based Greek practice Objects of Common Interest showcased several projects including a series of geometric totems showcasing the variety of Greek marble. As part of Brooklyn gallery ZAROLAT‘s group “OMNIA” showcase, Italian designer Edoardo Cozzani’s Pupae lighting series emerged as moulded glass forms anchored within a wall of mesh metal. 

Back within the city centre, one of the most impressive exhibits was seminal Cypriot-British designer Michael Anastassiades’s launch of new hyper-minimal modular lamps—placed in dialogue with Bruno Danese’s transcendent formal explorations—at the recently reopened foundation established in his name.

Rounding—or really, squaring—things out, two of-the-moment practices endeavoured to elevate the mundane typology of the table. Presented by New York gallery Salon 94 Design as part of the Capsule Plaza program, renowned British-Canadian designer Philippe Malouin collaborated with long-time Donald Judd furniture producer, Swiss company Lehni, to develop a new series of brightly coloured desks, credenzas, floating flat file shelves, low slung coffee tables, and worktops. Like the pared-back furnishings the seminal polymath imagined decades ago, the collection is a careful exploration of proportion. Distinctly, Malouin introduced self-lubricating nylon volumes as self-sufficient floor protectors, which are also integral to the aesthetic composition. 

Like Studio KO, Georgian duo Rooms Studio re-examined modern-era work environments with a collection of masterfully assembled tables dubbed Sub-currents. This iterative offering breaks proportional and functional conventions. One table features legs with jarring curves at their base. Another has both castered and additional pole legs. The latter thwarts the former’s function. Milan Design Week has clearly become the agora for not just furniture, lighting, and kitchen products but all facets of the ever-expanding domain.