Photo: t-space studio/ Courtesy of Capsule, Friedman Benda and Misha Kahn
All across Milan last week, in private apartments and palazzos, in abandoned factories and the Javits-esque Rho Fiera fairgrounds, furniture designers and design brands exhibited their latest, best work during the 64th annual Salone del Mobile. This year also featured the biennial Euroluce, a light exhibition, which lit up the Fiera’s pavilions with more than 300 featured designers. And curator Marva Griffin’s SaloneSatellite, a showcase for designers under 35, returned and awarded its top prize to the Japanese designer Kazuki Nagasawa. Here’s some of what caught my eye during Milan Design Week.
Sustainability was front and center during this year’s fair. The David Rockwell–sponsored Cork Collective, an environmental nonprofit, designed the immersive exhibition Casa Cork alongside several collaborators including Thomas Cooper Studio, De Castelli, Wolf-Gordon, 4Spaces, and Samuel & Sons to illustrate the myriad ways cork can be used as a design material. Though designers have worked with cork for decades — cork floors are relatively standard, and Italian master interior designer Renzo Mongiardino famously featured cork in his layered wall treatments — Casa Cork sought to push the boundaries of its application. The installation included a tree made of cork and a lounge and bar area complete with quilted-cork wall paneling as well as cork furniture and lighting.
Cork Collective designed Casa Cork, complete with cork furniture and lighting.
Photo: Ed Reeve for Rockwell Group
Still more cork was found in Rossana Orlandi’s site-specific installation Anesis. Clad in lime- and cork-based plaster, the sculptural sphere was designed by Giuliana Salmaso in collaboration with Diasen, whose cork-based finishing system, known as Corkphilia, was the main event. Diasen is known for its thermal and acoustic insulation, and inside the structure was a quiet sanctum. Could it be installed in one’s garden and withstand any type of weather? Yes!
Sustainable design studio Diasen’s cork-based finishing system created a quiet sanctum within Anesis.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima’s nomadic design fair, Alcova, known for its unique venues, returned this year to the 19th-century Villa Bagatti Valsecchi and that modernist spectacle Villa Borsani. Across the street from Borsani, SNIA, an abandoned textile factory, was a fitting backdrop for Ranieri’s installation of its lava-stone finishes.
In the abandoned SNIA factory, Ranieri displayed its lava-stone finishes along with huge chunks of the stone itself.
Photo: Piergiorgio Sorgetti
SNIA was also home to another wonderful installation, T.o.y.s., featuring BURG University students fresh off a three-day workshop where they were tasked with designing upholstered objects that each accommodated four people. Teams were given fibers from recycled mattress covers, a firm cotton fabric, and rope.
Throughout the exhibition, BURG University students nestled into their creations.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
Hermès has exhibited its new collections at the sports arena La Pelota over the last five fairs. This year, creative directors Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry displayed the brand’s latest collection in boxes, suspended in the vast and completely white space, each box emitting a glow of colored light.
Hermès’s colorful new housewares collection stood out in the converted former sports arena.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
Back at Rossana Orlandi, Li Edelkoort curated an exhibition of animal rugs with the Buenos Aires brother-sister duo Damian and Nuria Kehayoglou.
Li Edelkoort created a series of animal rugs, including this one, with Damian and Nuria Kehayoglou.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
For his new lighting collection, Michael Anastassiades drew on his childhood love of flying kites. The ethereal installation was featured at the palazzo of the Jacqueline Vodoz and Bruno Danese Foundation.
Michael Anastassiades’s kite-inspired lights lit up a palazzo.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
Martina Mondadori, founder and editor-in-chief of Cabana magazine, opened up her childhood home, designed by Renzo Mongiardino, to the public for the exhibition “Speak, Memory,” curated by the former magazine editor Deborah Needleman. Artist Peter Schlesinger’s ceramic pieces fit right in with the space, and it seemed to me that Green River Project and Bode’s new furniture had always been there. Dahyeon Yoo’s delicate stitched objects appeared out of a fairy tale, as did the beautiful work of Sophie Coryndon, James Cherry, and Sophie Wilson.
Peter Schlesinger’s ceramic pieces on display in Martina Mondadori’s childhood home.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
Casa Milana, the furniture and lighting design studio of Mario Milana and Gabriella Campagna, also opted for a more intimate venue, displaying their latest collection in their own brilliantly curated apartment. Here, in this photograph, I spied their Void Tables covered with Raniera’s lava-stone finishes.
Mario Milana and Gabriella Campagna’s lava-stone-covered Void tables.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
Soft, plump seating and sectionals were everywhere, from Patricia Urquiola’s creaturelike Gruuvelot sofa for Heimtextil, to Aline Asmar d’Amman’s Georgia chairs and lounges, to the velvet upholstered Belmer modular sofa by Matteo Cibic.
Patricia Urquiola’s Gruuvelot plump sofa seemed to spawn from itself.
Photo: Federico Coccio
I thought Willo’s Cloud Chair was some kind of miraculous Murano-glass concoction spun in a vivid emerald that only the Wizard could procure. In fact, it was 3-D printed and part of Charles Birshaw’s immersive AI-and-robotics-focused installation Portal.
Willo’s Cloud Chair was spun in a vivid emerald green.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
Misha Kahn’s blobby brilliance is on display at the showroom 5VIE along with so many other designers. Modular furniture is now taking on new organic drama, something Kahn has done from the get-go.
For Artemest’s tenth anniversary, the studio hosted its third edition of L’Appartamento, an exhibition featuring a roster of international design studios — including Meyer Davis and Champalimaud Design — to curate rooms at the historic Palazzo Donizetti.
The Fornasetti store is an immersive dreamworld filled with the designs of both Piero Fornasetti and his son, Barnaba. I always visit for a dose of joy.
Piero and Barnaba Fornasetti redesigned their store for Milan’s design week, echoing the feel of their historic family home.
Photo: Wendy Goodman
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