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Milano Design Week 2024 is upon us! From Monday 15 through Sunday 21 April, Milan will become the focal point of international design. Fuorisalone’s bustling program of events will bring the city’s streets, historic buildings, and hidden courtyards to life, with a thousand installations, exhibitions, and events that together offer a uniquely engaging experience for both professionals and enthusiasts. All this will happen while the 62nd Salone del Mobile is on at the Rho Fiera exhibition center, which, like every year, will start on Tuesday.
This year’s Milano Design Week features many events that are worth marking in your diary. Here’s our selection of the cream of the crop. Together, they offer a broad overview of the most important developments and trends in contemporary design today.
Cimento® is taking part in Fuorisalone 2024 with El Paron - Wisteria Tower, an installation artwork on display at Milan State University. The work of Patricia Urquiola, creative director of Cimento®, the piece uses this innovative cement-based material to celebrate Italian savoir-faire and pay homage to the city of Venice, where the company is based.
Composed of four stacked cubes, the 10 m high sculpture has an engagingly transparent effect achieved through the spray application of the material. El Paron – Wisteria Tower recalls the image of the San Marco belltower in Venice. The name of the artwork, el paron, is Venetian dialect for “the master,” which is the traditional name for the belltower.
Moleskine is launching Pen&Paper during Milano Design Week, a campaign to promote a return to handwriting as a way of stimulating creativity and memory. Based on scientific studies, the campaign highlights the benefits of handwriting.
Moleskine and the Moleskine Foundation are inviting the public to step into the fascinating world of designer notebooks with its international touring exhibition Detour, which can be visited at Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and Alcova.
Cosentino has collaborated with the designers from FormaFantasma to create Earthic LAB, an installation that offers a new perspective on surface design. The piece is on show at Teatro Gerolamo at Piazza Cesare Beccaria 8. This collaboration sets out to highlight the meaning of design beyond its visual appeal, while emphasizing ethical manufacturing practices. Offering an immersive experience, Earthic LAB reflects a significant shift towards an innovative approach to surfaces.
iGuzzini is presenting Light that Moves Time at Fuorisalone, a site-specific installation created by Alfonso Femia/AF* Design at iGuzzini’s space in Milan, The Light Gate, at Via Brera 5. This is an evolving project in which light creates an engaging narrative that blends and overlaps different temporal dimensions. It takes visitors on a journey in which past, future, dreams, and design combine in an evocative communication experience. The fulcrum of the installation, set up in the courtyard of the early 19th-century Piermarini building, is The Primitive Hut, a truncated cone that evokes the archetypal geometry of the refuge.
Iris Ceramica's collections, particularly Aged Concrete and Vynil, will be featured in Diesel Living's Red Takeover and Silver Dome exhibition, which welcomes visitors with iconic shades of red and silver. Inside the conceptual showroom located in via delle Erbe 2/A, Brera district, Diesel Living designed a lively and eccentric domestic environment, conveying a singular vision of home and shared environments.
Diasen participates in Milan Design Week 2024 with Il bosco in una stanza (The Forest in a Room), a work by industrial designer Giulio Iacchetti, on display at Galleria Rossana Orlandi.
Il bosco in una stanza is a tribute to the Mediterranean and the cork ecosystem, since cork represents the main material of Diasen biomalts and paints. The project aims to convey the concept of CorkPhilia, a term created by the company to describe its love for cork, which Diasen translates into a biophilic and multisensory experience.
MCA – Mario Cucinella Architects has created the installation Urban Mining. Design, Dismantle, Disseminate for Solferino 28, the design event being held in the courtyard of the historic headquarters of the Corriere della Sera newspaper. The project offers a regenerative vision of the city of the future inspired by urban mining that aims to recover and reuse built heritage to self-regenerate urban spaces.
Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu will be at Milano Design Week 2024 with their latest designs for several major brands, including Arflex, Cassina, Ento, Stellar Works, and Valcucine. The event will showcase their interdisciplinary approach aimed at establishing a meaningful dialogue among furniture, accessories, product design, and interior design.
Other contributions from Neri&Hu include the installation The Hearth, which is a part of the Valcucine collective exhibition, entitled Architectural Scenarios, on show at the Valcucine Flagship Store at Corso Garibaldi 99. The work focuses on the kitchen as a metaphor for warmth and social interaction in the home.
For Fuorisalone, the Nou Group design studio created Missione Cassandra, a dystopian tram installation that reflects on climate change. The work imagines a spaceship from the future that’s guarding the last piece of green earth from our planet. It offers a disturbing vision that focuses attention on sustainability.
Atelier Mirage is officially launching Nagomi at Fuorisalone, a collection created in collaboration with Hadi Teherani, who will also be participating in a panel discussion scheduled for Tuesday, April 16, at 7:00 pm, at Mirage Project Point Milan, Via Marsala 7.
Atelier Mirage is a thinktank set up by Mirage, with the support of international architecture and interior design firms, that represents a journey of discovery towards new expressive forms for Italian ceramics. The Nagomi project grew out of the use of recycled glass from cathode ray tubes from old televisions and monitors. It offers a vision of design that elevates the decorative function to create a dialogue with the environment.
Politecnico di Milano is showcasing its INTERDEPENDENCE – Designing Relationships project, which examines the role of design in our world of interdependencies through a selection of projects by students of the Polytechnic and other international universities. The event sets out to underscore the importance of considering the consequences of our actions, while promoting sustainability and wellbeing.
Presented at Prague Castle last summer, Designblok Cosmos is coming to Milan. This touring exhibition comprises ten original glass artworks created by contemporary Czech designers. Set up inside a capsule mounted on a space-age six-wheel vehicle, it will take place as a part of Superdesign Show, the event held every year at Superstudio Più, Via Tortona 27.
Superdesign Show 2024, which centers on the theme of Thinking Different – Everything, Everywhere, Everyone will see the participation of over 80 companies from eleven nations and three continents, with almost 40 projects on display.
Based on an interdisciplinary dialogue, the exhibition MIMESIS – Form and Image explores the principle of mimesis through works of art and architecture. Set up in a private space on Via Sant’Andrea, in the heart of Milan’s Fashion District, the exhibition is the sixth edition of the HoperAperta cultural project.
The principle of mimesis refers to the relationship between different image-forms and their imitation in art through the representation of the idea. Curated by Patrizia Catalano and Maurizio Barberis, this exhibition gathers together works by various artists and architects on the theme of mimesis, which they interpret in a variety of ways. Participants include the New York Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Design.
Designer Francesca Müller has created an event entitled Artisan Intelligence, to be staged at Palazzo Giureconsulti as part of the eighth Masterly – The Dutch in Milano Exhibition, dedicated to Dutch design.
A textile engineer, Francesca Müller uses artificial intelligence in her work to complement artisanal knowledge. However, she’s committed to keeping the emphasis on tradition and simply using AI as a tool. Her exhibition includes six products that combine modernity and tradition in a metaclassical style.
For All, an exhibition dedicated to accessible hospitality that’s part of the trade event Hospitality – Il Salone dell’Accoglienza, and developed by Village for All (V4A) and Lombardini22, will take place at hotel nhow Milano in the Tortona District. The event comprises three interactive installations that showcase ideas and suggestions for applying universal design to the hospitality sector.
AHEC (American Hardwood Export Council), the main international association of American hardwood producers, has commissioned emerging designers to create new pieces in American maple. Their designs will be on show at the Class of ’24 exhibition at Triennale Milano.
The designers have used American maple as a springboard to explore and experiment, creating some very different but connected works. With his Communion table, British-Ghanaian designer Giles Tettey Nartey explores the culture, culinary traditions, and domestic rituals of Ghana. The Pirouette furniture collection by the Parti studio features complex shapes, inspired by the fluid movement of fabrics and the simple joy of spinning.
Park Hub, Via Benvenuto Garofalo 31, is hosting the exhibition Micrographia – Redesign for Biodiversity. This event comprises three experimental works by the multidisciplinary design studio Johanna Seelemann, each designed and developed by invitation and under the supervision of Park Associati through collaboration with Ricehouse, Arche3d, and Primat, and with consultancy from Vivaio Bicocca.
The title of the exhibition, Micrographia, refers to Robert Hooke’s 1665 book of the same name, which was the first publication with illustrations of insects and plants under a microscope. The exhibition offers reflections on the question, “How can we design urban products that are useful beyond human applications to serve numerous species simultaneously?”
The exhibition NOT COMPROMISED: HUMANS and NATURE at Their Best!, curated by Pietro Mini and hosted by Liceo Classico G.Parini, Via San Marco 2/3, explores three new models of society through architecture and design. The event challenges perceptions through videos that promote an inclusive and sustainable lifestyle, with the focus on Thailand, the country of origin of the projects on display.
Besides the videos, the event features furniture made with elephant excrement by architect Boonserm Premthada, highlighting a non-anthropocentric coexistence between man, flora, and fauna for a more sustainable world.
The Future Nostalgia exhibition, being staged in Remigio Architects office, corner Via Plinio and Via Righi, takes visitors on a journey through a Milan that doesn’t exist but could have. This is a narrative flow that comes to life with illustrated installations and designer furnishings in an immersive, olfactory, and aural journey.
The project grew out of collaboration between architect Luca Remigio, founder of Remigio Architects, and illustrator Jacopo Ascari, founder of Atelier Ascari. Future Nostalgia is a story about a Milan made up of impossible projects and visions by the greatest masters, and iconic unfinished projects, which open a door to futuristic scenarios.
The Brera Design District is presenting the fifteenth Design Week, getting behind this year’s Fuorisalone theme of Material Nature to encourage reflection on sustainability and conscious design. With a program of 220 events and the participation of 260 exhibitors, the district continues to assert its role as a point of reference in the world of design.
Titled Prelude, the ninth Tortona Rocks investigates new approaches that are revolutionizing design, from ecological responsibility to taking full advantage of skill sets. The exhibition celebrates the return of designer furniture to the Tortona area, with a contingent of international companies featuring products distinguished by a crosspollination of tradition, materials research, and contemporary design.
Unlimited Design Orchestra is the theme of the eleventh 5VIE Design Week, which will examine design from the perspective of collaboration and sharing. Themed “Design for Good,” last year’s event focused on the increasingly pressing need for caring among human beings by seeing design as a means of bringing together anthropocentrism and philanthropy. This year’s theme amplifies on this, tracing through music, and, in particular, the instruments that make up an orchestra, models that provide inspiration for design that’s increasingly focused on the intrinsically human and humanistic dimensions.
Milano Durini Design District (MDD) is reflecting on the theme of Color Design Experience at Milan Design Week 2024, highlighting the essential role of color in design and everyday life. Urban visual elements located around the MDD district will create an ongoing narrative on the theme of color.
After its first edition last year, Porta Venezia Design District, THE OTHER District returns to Milano Design Week with the theme EverythinK Is Design, which reflects the inclusiveness and diversity of this neighborhood. Inspired by the work of graphic designer Paul Rand, the event celebrates design as a union between form and content that’s open to multiple expressions. There’s a focus on new trends and emerging designers to promote experiments centered on the future and sustainability.
Please refer to the individual images in the gallery to look through the photo credits
