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With 1125 events involving 838 firms, the numbers from the last Milano Design Week confirm its role as the sector’s most important citywide event internationally.
This spring, Fuorisalone put out a call to companies and designers to express their visions through events, exhibitions, and installations. The theme for their creativity was “Material Nature,” intended to highlight the role of design in giving the public new languages and visions for our relationship with planet Earth.
With the dates of next year’s event already set for April 7–13, THE PLAN has chosen the most significant works we saw at Fuorisalone 2024.
One of the most intriguing works at Fuorisalone 2024 was the installation The Amazing Walk, designed by MAD Architects for Amazon and sited in the Cortile della Farmacia at the University of Milan. The work, with lighting by Artemide, offered a haunting vision of a majestic mountain reflected on water, blurring the boundaries between the built and natural environments.
Made of aluminum alloy and covered with a semi-permeable composite membrane, The Amazing Walk changes its appearance depending on the light, with unique reflections during both night and day. This engaging structure transported visitors into new dimensions just begging to be explored.
In the Porta Venezia Design District, Palazzo Isimbardi hosted Lasvit’s Re/Creation exhibition, which won the Fuorisalone Award. Sited in the building courtyard, the centerpiece of the event was Porta, a work by Maxim Velcovsky, artistic director of Lasvit. This monumental installation in fused glass showcased the Czech firm’s expertise and innovative approach to design, architecture, and glass production.
At the same venue, the company also showcased its new Nebula collection, designed by the Claesson Koivisto Rune studio; the bespoke Bois de Cristal work by Maria Culenova, senior designer at Lasvit; and La Scala Gold, a limited edition gold version of the La Scala pendant light from its iconic Neverending Glory range, designed by Jan Plechac and Henry Wielgus.
Also from the Czech Republic, Preciosa Lighting was at Fuorisalone with its Crystal Beat Vol. II installation, which grew out of its Crystal Beat concept, exhibited at Euroluce in 2023. Sited in Opificio 31, in the Tortona district, the work offered visitors an immersive experience created with Preciosa’s new signature design, Crystal Pixels. The installation featured a spectacular combination of light and music inspired by vintage video games and the dawn of digital aesthetics, with 400 pendants with colorful LED lights, generating a hypnotic, enveloping effect.
The idea behind Poesis Materiae, an installation designed by Zaha Hadid Design for Iris Ceramica Group, is to present the poetry of ceramics. Sited in Piazza dei Mercanti, close to the Duomo, Poesis Materiae is an attempt to cast ceramics in the roll of a natural, durable, eclectic, and sustainable material to promote a culture of responsible design. The project took visitors on a journey through real and virtual worlds. With the material the centerpiece of the installation, surfaces transformed into a moving wave in an exploration of design that went beyond the limits of traditional applications.
Diasen marked its debut at this year’s Fuorisalone with Il bosco in una stanza (The forest in a room), a work by designer Giulio Iacchetti sited in the Rossana Orlandi gallery. The company supplies materials for green, sustainable projects, specializing in natural materials typical of the Mediterranean tradition – such as cork, clay, lime, and pumice stone – for creating architectural and interior design solutions. Il bosco in una stanza transported visitors into a metaphorical cork forest in an immersive and biophilic experience for all the senses.
The wallpapers in Glamora’s Arcadia Collection are the firm’s tribute to the classical world, drawing their inspiration from Greco-Roman iconography, but reworking its aesthetics through a contemporary lens using figurative patterns that give life to welcoming spaces with their own poetry.
The collection includes ten subjects, each of which is available in a single colorway with particular materials, composed of a double figurative design that can be combined with two additional patterns to create visual and tactile designs with a scenographic effect. The colorways are based on warm, powder shades and neutral tones, set off by natural pigments.
For Milano Design Week 2024, QU lighting’s temporary showroom in Via Cernaia hosted an installation entitled Corpo Unico (Single body). Sited in the internal courtyard of a typical stately Milanese building, it focused on the relationship between light and contemporary art through a selection of steel sculptures by Turin-based artist Salvatore Astore.
Curated by Aldo Parisotto of Parisotto + Formenton Architetti, with artistic direction by Galleria Mazzoleni, London – Torino, and lighting consultancy by Light Company, this project took visitors on a journey of discovery through the garden, the greenhouse, and the rooms of the building, where the steel sculptures interacted with light in dynamic ways.
Cross-discipline pollination, technological research, and craftsmanship all come together in the Collezione Giorgetti 2024. During Fuorisalone, the company opened to the public the Giorgetti Spiga – The Place showroom in Via della Spiga. The new products the firm showcased this year respond to contemporary needs through a perfect balance between functionality and elegance, embracing new languages, cultures, and points of view. The result was a celebration of creativity and the joy of living, starting with the values that have distinguished the Milanese firm for 126 years: quality, a passion for detail, and sophisticated elegance.
gioiAtelier: a new space for designers
GioiAtelier is Italamp and Capital Collection’s new permanent showroom in Via Melchiorre Gioia, Milan, just a stone’s throw from the exclusive Gae Aulenti and Corso Como district. The product of collaboration between the two brands and inaugurated during Milano Design Week, gioiAtelier is a space dedicated to showcasing the excellence of Italian manufactured goods and to give a new face to beauty, reinterpreting the concept of luxury in a contemporary key. The synergy between the two companies has given life to a unique space, which is sure to become an invaluable asset for the residential, design, and contract sectors.
Piazza Gorani, Lapalma’s homebase in Milan’s Cinque Vie district, was the setting for a string of events put together by the firm for Milano Design Week. They included “Word Play: Objects,” the first solo exhibition in Milan by South Korean studio Kuo Duo, sited in Riviera, the creative hub put together by Simple Flair. The exhibition brought together 18 everyday objects created from reflections and experiments with shapes and materials.
The creative processes of industrial designers Hwachan Lee and Yoomin Maeng brought together in surprising ways the vocabulary of various manufacturing techniques and different materials, defining a new approach – called “word play” – for investigating the unlimited possibilities of materials and experimenting with new manufacturing approaches.
Fim Umbrellas and Coro Italia recently appointed 967arch as their art director. This architecture and design studio was behind the exhibition that the two firms presented in Milan. Located in Biblioteca Umanistica dell’Incoronata, the exhibition welcomed visitors to an outdoor lounge set up in the public spaces in front of the historic library building. From here, a green pathway led to Sala degli Archi and, from there, to the small cloister. The project was conceived not only as a way of showcasing Fim’s and Coro’s outdoor collections, but also as a journey to discover contemporary aesthetics in historical settings.
The playful installation Going Bananas, Slide’s contribution to Milano Design Week on the façade and in the lobby of Hotel Indigo Milan at 27 Corso Monforte, had genuine visual impact. The focus of the work, by designer Marcantonio, was Banana Leaf, an indoor and outdoor lamp from the Afrika collection.
Throughout the week, Slide and Hotel Indigo Milan welcomed guests with a hospitality project inspired by Africa, beginning with the furnishings and through to the music, cocktails, and menus. Adding a magical touch to the proceedings were the colors and sense of humor of Slide furnishings, made from recyclable plastic using a process that produces zero harmful emissions.
Andromeda is a new furniture collection that UniFor presented at Fuorisalone. Designed by international architecture and design studio LSM, Andromeda grew from a fusion of contemporary design, engineering excellence, elegance, and comfort. The collection includes sofas, coffee tables, dining tables, and sideboards, all with clean lines and the use of polished aluminum as a unifying element, complemented by other materials such as glass, travertine, and leather. The collection is designed for use in different settings, from work environments to meeting rooms and the home.
In its Piazza Fontana showroom, Antolini displayed creations made with Cristallo Vitrum Wow natural quartz. Ideal for applications ranging from washbasins to dining table tops, this stone resembles a sheet of glacial ice with amber veining. The translucent surface conveys an effect of wonder and dynamism that’s simply enchanting.
Italian elevator manufacturer Vimec collaborated with its sister company Aritco to create Fairytale, an installation presented as part of Design Variations, a collective project put together by Moscapartners. Created with designer Alexander Lervik, Fairytale draws its inspiration from the Scandinavian fairytales of John Bauer, a Swedish painter and artist of the late 1900s. The installation showcased the extensive customization possibilities of Aritco HomeLift, including by camouflaging residential elevators among the trees and creatures of an enchanted forest.
Please refer to the individual images in the gallery to look through the photo credits
