In the design world, April in Milan can means Salone del Mobile di Milano and Milan Design Week. This year Salone took place from Tuesday the 4th through Sunday the 9th, and I was lucky enough to be there!
I arrived a couple of days early – I didn’t want to start the show feeling jet lagged. On Sunday I had an opportunity to join many others at the Castello Sforzesco to admire Michelangelo’s unfinished Pietà Rondanini among other treasures of the Castello’s museums and galleries. It was Milan Marathon Day, and while several thousand ran, I strolled; while they gulped a mouthful of water, I enjoyed a leisurely beer in one of the courtyards of the Castello. Choices!
As you all know, Salone is enormous. It was enormous before it moved to new, larger digs in the Milan suburb of Rho. And it was enormous before its gravity attracted thousands of surrounding events that have now coalesced into Milan Design Week. I’m not sure of the exact history of Milan Design Week, but I know that from very early on in the history of Salone, the big name companies that had showrooms in the city center opened them and hosted special events for the crowds that were in town for Salone.
At any rate, today i Saloni (plural because Salone del Mobile consists of many salons, each focused on a product category) generates approximately 300,000 visitors to the city – all in search of the newest, latest and greatest in design.
At the international press conference, Claudio Luti, president of Salone del Mobile di Milano was asked all the typical journalistic questions about attendance vs. prior years and the number and quality of exhibitors and whether this thing worked and that thing didn’t. But in my view he summed it all up when he said, “Italy is the design capitol of the world and Milan is the design capitol of Italy.”
Each day the crowd lines up well before the official opening time of 9:00 am and when the gates open it’s a pretty mad dash. It’s as if people simply can’t wait for their feet to start aching. Most wear “sensible” shoes, but I’m always amazed that there are a few stiletto heels to be seen. There are 20 Padiglioni (pavilions) and for veteran attendees there’s a general sense that the “design pavilions” will be clustered around Pavilion #20. Nevertheless, it is vitally important to secure an official catalog as soon as possible in order to be able to plan your visit. Get a catalog, grab a seat, plan your initial route and get going.
There are pavilions dedicated to traditional residential furniture and lighting. I go there last and only if I have time – which I never do. To me walking through those spaces makes me wonder whether Mr. Luti’s comment about the capitol of design is actually correct. But I do understand that not everybody defines design in the same way. I did like the name chosen for two such pavilions: “Classic: Tradition in the Future.”
Even if you focus primarily on more contemporary themes, it’s important to understand that most of Salone is about other than workplace furniture and furnishings. One of the first stands I encountered was that of Adrenalina, a company from the Adriatic coast south of Venice. The visual impact of the stand was pretty much the equivalent of a couple of double espressos. It was quite colorful and made me think the company was very aptly named.
Not far into the famed “Design
by Saverio Lombardi Vallauri, Courtesy of Salone del Mobile.Milano
Pavilion,” I found Vitra and Knoll diagonally across from one another. Both stands were stunning and both were skewed toward residential applications of their product offerings. In keeping with its brand position in Europe, Knoll displayed mostly Knoll Studio products on what had to be the most impressive marble floor of the show.
Vitra used the occasion to launch new sofa lines by Antonio Citterio
of Vitra.
and Barber & Osgerby and a new side chair by the Bouroullec brothers. In keeping with the European attitude of specifying a specific color approach to products, Hella Jongerius developed a leather color palette for the East River Chair that reflects her deep understanding of color and shape.
In a similar but entirely different way, Paola Navone put her stamp on everything about and in the stand of her primary patron, Gervasoni. As with all her work it was a Thanksgiving feast for the eyes (I don’t know about you, but I always eat too much at Thanksgiving).
Arper is a company that has been making its presence felt in North America, and for Salone it had devised a cityscape plan for its space. A piazza in the middle, that we would recognize as “third space” or “we space,” was surrounded by “buildings” that were really rooms furnished with both new and existing products in a way that implied an activity type.
Every other year Salone features an international workplace exhibition. This year’s edition was called Workplace 3.0. This year’s edition was less that totally impressive. It may well be that Salone can’t compete with the big international workplace shows like Orgatec and NeoCon because while many of the companies we regard as “workplace furniture and furnishings” companies were present at the show they were, like Knoll and Vitra, focused on other aspects of their brands.
Estel, an Italian company that has recently been active in North America and Citterio, a division of Molteni both had extensive and impressive stands. I particularly liked Citterio’s approach to acoustics.
A cynic might say that as a result of the small number of exhibitors in Workplace 3.0, approximately 1,600 M2 of show floor space was given over to a special exhibition entitled, “A Joyful Sense at Work.”
According to the organizers, “The purpose of A Joyful Sense at Work is to breathe new life into the theory of office and workplace design by setting its sights squarely on people, in terms of their needs, emotions and experiences. This stunning installation was created especially for the biennial Workplace3.0 exhibition curated by the architect Cristiana Cutrona.
Four architectural practices of international renown and standing, chosen on the basis of geographic
area of provenance, have been invited to design “an installation within an installation”: Primo Orpilla and Verda Alexander/Studio O+A (USA), Arash Ahmadi/Ahmadi Studio (Italy and Iran), Ben van Berkel/UNStudio and Jeff Povio/SCAPE (Holland) and Alfonso Femia & Gianluca Peluffo/Studio 5+1AA (Italy).”
Euroluce 2017 is the international lighting show. Judging by the crowds, this year’s most popular stands were Flos and Foscarini. Both companies had spectacularly designed stands and both were packed at all times I stopped by.
Foscarini definitely had the most eye-popping stand with its logo in huge orange illuminated letters on 20-foot high black walls. Once inside, the visual hoopla was maintained with graphically complex backdrops to pendant fixtures on display. Other new products were displayed in more conventional cases with the ambient light level kept low to accentuate the luminaires.
Flos hired Calvi Brambilla to design its more than 1,000 M2 space. It
was almost impossible to get into the space most of the time. I got there early in the morning on the second day, and I wasn’t disappointed. Flos launched exceptional new designs by internationally acclaimed designers Michael Anastassiades, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Konstantin Grcic, Piero Lissoni, Barber & Osgerby, Philippe Starck, Vincent Van Duysen, and two exclusive new collaborations with talented Italian artist duo Formafantasma and Japanese renowned brand Nendo.
In the Flos background material Mr. Brambilla said, “For Flos, we have designed a place made up of minimalist but dynamic spaces. With their carefully curated proportions, they become sets where the new collections play the leading role.
The architecture, far from being simply a container or display space, is conceived as a metaphor for the peculiar tension in the research process that is intrinsic to the project. In various points the walls seem brought to life by a movement through which they change, dilate or open like curtains pulled by a gesture, giving the place personality and unparalleled power of expression.”
Salone Satellite is in its 20th year. It is a generous gesture by the Salone organizers to both recognize and encourage young talented designers around the globe. Salone Satellite is a formal part of the show with a dedicated pavilion. Once a young
designer is accepted for “Satellite,” she has the right to exhibit each year for three years. My impression this year is that the presentations are getting much more polished and professional, even though there is still room for the lighthearted and even off-the-wall.
I asked most of the designers I engaged with what they hoped to achieve by being part of Salone Satellite, and without fail the answer was to be “discovered” by a manufacturer. Surprise!
And finally, Milan Design Week. Throughout the city companies plan events based loosely on design aspects of their brands. The two most active areas are Brera, a district of the city near the Duomo and Galleria that has long been the location of design oriented shops and restaurants.
During Milan Design Week it’s nearly impossible to pass down any of the main streets of Brera, as they are full of design week revelers enjoying the shops and the food. Various companies work hard to promote events in Brera, and they are invariably packed and thereby judged successful.
Zona Cortona is an area of the city south of the center near Porta Genova. When I started going to Milan many years ago, Zona Cortona was a low rent, mostly industrial area where a few architects and designers found cheap rent; not so today.
Probably due to the presence of those design-oriented firms, the area began hosting events while i Saloni were underway. Initially, it had the spark of serendipity and youth that made it a nice counterpoint to the formality and rigor of i Saloni.
And it still maintains much of that youthful exuberance, but the big brands from fashion, the auto industry and other industries trying to boost their design creds have moved in. So while electronic dance music and rap reverberate up and down the streets, you can find Mercedes Benz and BMW hosting events. That said, even after a full day of walking the aisles at Salone del Mobile, it’s fun and refreshing to catch the younger vibe at Zona Tortona – while getting ready for an evening at Brera.
You gotta love it!