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Milano Design Week returns to its traditional spring timeslot as the international point of reference for design. The city’s streets, historic buildings, and hidden courtyards to host hundreds of installations, exhibitions, and events.
There are plenty of things happening during Milano Design Week well worth marking in your calendar. Here’s our selection of just 20 of them that you won’t want to miss.
1. SWING
Stefano Boeri Interiors designed the Swing installation in Chiostro del Filarete, Ca Granda, in collaboration with Amazon. This is an interactive work: a swing frame made up of 12 reconfigurable modules, each with three swings. The result is a place for play in which biodiversity and simply taking it slow provide an answer to our frenetic pace of life. Amazon fits into this picture in the sense that, with just a click, it makes it possible to save time and relax, just like a child on a swing after school.
University of Milan, Via Festa del Perdono
2. SYNESTHETIC SWIRL
Working in partnership with Whirlpool, Studio Odile Decq created the Synesthetic Swirl installation in Chiostro Grande as an invitation to us to reflect on what really matters in life. Visitors are taken on a sensory journey in two parts. The first part is a curving path through reflective polished stainless steel surfaces. The second is a glazed room in which steam creates a feeling of disorientation, while the temperature and color of lights vary with changing sounds, both celebrating and alienating the senses.
University of Milan, Via Festa del Perdono
3. NUTURA
With Nutura, Benedetta Tagliabue EMBT takes a lighthearted, almost playful look at the serious matter of sustainability. The pavilion designed by her integrates with a variety of organic forms, such as trees and hedges. The finer details top it all off, such as the tiles, with simple, almost primordial designs, in shades that recall the Mediterranean. Although a long way from the sea, Milan’s corner of the Mediterranean comes to life in this installation inspired by Barcelona’s 20th-century identity.
University of Milan, Via Festa del Perdono
4. MOMENTUM
Under the guidance of Ma Yansong, MAD Architects is presenting the installation Momentum, created in collaboration with AXA IM ALTS. The work is a simple cube, a vehicle for many different forms of artistic expression, intended to suggest the solidification and refinement of time. By day, it reflects the surroundings of its setting in the University of Milan; by night, it becomes a semi-transparent body in which internal lights give the work a unique character. Finally, through the use of AR (augmented reality), visitors can also interact with the work from their Instagram account.
University of Milan, Via Festa del Perdono
5. THE SEA DECK
The work of AMDL CIRCLE and Michele De Lucchi for Azimut Yacht, The Sea Deck is possibly the most unusual installation at the exhibition. It comprises a round floating pier reminiscent of a ship’s hull. The purpose of the work is twofold: on the one hand, to establish a relationship with water, and, on the other, to showcase Azimut’s commitment to sustainability.
Darsena di Milano, Viale Gabriele D’Annunzio
6. ELEVATORS
For the first time ever, Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper is opening its historic headquarters to the public. And it’s doing it with some very special installations. The first is an animated digital projection in which some historical pages from the newspaper are brought to life. The second, in the inner courtyard, is an installation designed by Migliore+Servetto that takes the form of a double elevator that will take visitors on a perceptual journey through time.
Via Solferino 28
7. BEYOND THE SURFACE
SolidNature, a Dutch firm specialized in processing natural stone, is presenting an independent installation entitled Beyond the Surface. The project, curated by Ellen Van Loon and Giulio Margheri from Studio Oma, is an immersive dreamscape in which the concreteness of stone fades to non-matter, a dream. The installation is intended to stimulate and inspire visitors to dream and push the limits of their creativity.
Spazio Cernaia, Via Cernaia 1
8. CAMPO BASE
In what seems like the opening of Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an Author, six Italian architecture studios have come together at Campo Base to breathe life into an exercise in shared architectural practice. Campo Base has become a manifesto of self-managed, self-produced architecture. The leading characters in the story are the six studios: Eligostudio (Milan), Studiopepe (Milan), Hannes Peer (Milan), Massimo Adario (Rome), Giuliano Andrea dell’Uva (Naples), and Marcante-Testa (Turin).
Via Orobia 11
9. IL PALAZZO DELLE MERAVIGLIE
Conceived and commissioned by Katrin Herden, with architect Alessandro Zarinelli and their practice Studio MHZ, Palazzo delle Meraviglie (Palace of wonders) brings together six international companies in synergy to offer high quality products. The firms involved in this new edition are LCD textile, Hommés Studio, Phillip Jeffries, Delvis Unlimited, Sohil, and, in particular, Zaha Hadid Design in collaboration with Karimoku.
Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, Via Gesù 5
10. IL CAVALIERE FANTASMA
Architecture studio CZA Cino Zucchi Architetti is hosting Cavaliere Fantasma (Ghost knight), an exhibition by German artist and illustrator Robert Deutsch. Deutsch creates ambiguous universes in which an eccentric cast of characters revel in the darker sides of contemporary life. Bizarre cars, allegorical landscapes, weird figures – his art is a mixture of early 20th-century expressionism and comic art.
Via Giuseppe Revere 8
11. DESACRALISED
In the deconsecrated Church of San Vittore e 40 Martiri, Galerie Philia is staging an exhibition of work by international designers entitled Desacralised. Each designer has created their own interpretation of the concept of desacralization, inspired by what were once religious objects. All the works are white.
Viale Lucania 18
12. HEALTH THROUGH WATER
In the courtyard of Pinacoteca di Brera, Grohe has created an installation inspired by water. A large mirrored surface reflects the 18th-century internal façade of the famous Milanese museum. The installation also includes four immersive spaces, each dedicated to a specific theme.
Pinacoteca di Brera, Via Brera 28
13. ALCOVA – EX MACELLO DI PORTA VITTORIA
In the evocative setting of the former abattoir in Porta Vittoria, Alcova is presenting an exhibition of over 70 projects. The event brings together designers and companies with the aim of finding evolutionary keys to design. The connecting thread running through the exhibition is contemporary design culture reflecting on living environments, innovation, technology, and materials. All without forgetting sustainability.
Ex-Macello di Porta Vittoria, Viale Molise 62
14. VIENI A VEDERE
Created by Gaetano Pesce, Vieni a Vedere (Come and see) is a site-specific installation in the Bottega Veneta store in Via Montenapoleone, Milan’s archetypal fashion street. With its angular walls made of light materials, such as resins and fabrics, the work replicates the interior of a cave, using the setting for displaying the store’s products.
Bottega Veneta, Via Montenapoleone 27/A
15. MORE OR LESS
Dutch designer Maarten Baas returns to Milan with More or Less, an exhibition created in collaboration with fashion brand G-Star RAW inside the 16th-century church of San Paolo Converso. These historical spaces form the backdrop to three jeans-shaped cabinets and a 50-foot private jet, all made from recycled G-Star jeans. The aim of the installation is to create tension between mass consumerism and sustainable design, between the desire to have more and the need to produce less.
Church of San Paolo Converso, Piazza Sant’Eufemia 1
16. SUPERDESIGN SHOW
Marking its 40th anniversary, Superstudio has chosen Inspiration, Innovation, Imagination as the theme of Superdesign Show 2023. The exhibition presents a mosaic of links between objects from the past, present, and future. Ample space is dedicated to the innovations and new technologies that will shape our future, such as augmented reality and the multiverse, without forgetting some original installations from Asia.
Superstudio Più, Via Tortona 27
17. THIRTY YEARS OF HEALTHY WOOD
Fiemme Tremila, a Trentino-based company specializing in the production of biocompatible timber floors and furnishings, is celebrating its 30th anniversary with the release of three new limited edition products (Leggero, Elegante, and Deciso) and new processes, accompanied by a photographic exhibition dedicated to its most important achievements entitled 30 Years of Healthy Wood.
Fiemme Store, Via Lanza 4
18. TRAME
Trame (Plots) is a participatory and dynamic work that portrays a landscape of encounters between living beings. In this installation by Stark, life is constantly shifting, in continuous dialogue with a soundscape and interactive landscape. The plots born from the encounters, from the visitors’ own actions, constantly change the installation into infinite versions of itself. The work sets out to demonstrate how our lives not only depend on our own actions but also on those of others around us.
Acquario Civico, Viale Gadio 2
19. SHAPED BY WATER
After a few years away, Google has returned to Milano Design Week with an installation that brings together water, art, technology, and our senses. In fact, the work is intended to stimulate the senses, from sight to hearing, with water. It consists of a series of metal containers that transform the sonic and optical properties of water. The reflections it produces can be watched from seating designed especially for the event.
Garage 21, Via Archimede 26
20. NEW HORIZONS – AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE
With 2023 an important year for the lighting industry with the return of Euroluce, Occhio has chosen the glass pavilion in Villa Necchi Campiglio, a stone’s throw from Corso Monforte, as the setting for its multisensory installation intended to showcase its latest products and patents, but also as a space with infinite nuances and everchanging panoramas. Named New Horizons – An Immersive Experience, the event is a journey through the company’s vision of the lighting of tomorrow. “It’s an experience that’s all about sensations, an installation that lets you experience the deep emotions that light can trigger,” says Axel Meise, founder and designer of Occhio.
Villa Necchi Campiglio, Via Mozart 14
>>> Discover also Infinitude. A circular Lighting Experience by QU
Individual photo credits are included in each gallery image
