Milano Design City: Design Culture Endures in Italy

The event showed off changing trends and new approaches to everything from showrooms to the process of design itself

This autumn, Fuorisalone.it – which usually runs a city-wide design week concurrent with the iconic Salone del Mobile trade fair that takes place in April every year – teamed up with their founding magazine Interni to organise Milano Design City, a week of design events that took place virtually and around Milan, Italy from September 28 to October 10. Evolving from a smaller Fall Design Week that usually takes place around this time, it took over the city with a full lineup of over 230 events that included seminars with big names in the design scene, inaugurations of new showrooms around the city and presentations of new editions of iconic designs.

There were also many new products, with a surprise twist. New product prototypes are usually presented at Salone in April. As the trade fair was cancelled this year due to the pandemic, many pieces were presented here for the first time – but as products already on the market, not prototypes, thanks to the autumn date.

 

  1. From Virtual to Physical


Some of the energy and novelty of the April event was captured this autumn in design districts around the city. There were also new ‘urban itineraries’ that laid out routes through the city’s events. Local organisations also participated: The Triennale Milano, for example, opened the Museum of Italian Design for free.


The event was jam-packed with installations, showroom openings and talks on design trends. Hot topics included the advent of benefit corporations, the evolution of furniture finishes and new developments in intelligent lighting technology.

 

  1. Companies Taking the High Road


One focus were Benefit Corporations, the formal legal entity that mirrors the third-party accredited B Corporations: companies that focus on social goals as well as profit.

This movement is being driven by recent legislation that officially recognises them as a type of legal entity, but many companies have been taking social and environmental aims into account for some time. “Being a benefit corporation has nothing to do with the size of the individual company; it’s about the reasons for doing business,” says Nicoletta Alessi, Corporate Responsibility Manager at Alessi. “We have never put profit first; despite being a for-profit company, we have always held to another entrepreneurial calling, that of serving society, in our case by making products that are first and foremost works of art.”

 

  1. Design on Location


The participating Milanese showrooms attracted visitors with innovative approaches, whether creative new designs for their interiors and exteriors, or by reinventing themselves as multifunctional venues.


The showroom of Marsotto Milano, who specialise in marble and natural stone, was one highlight. A collaboration with Japanese design studio Nendo produced a space that is impactful right from its entrance, where the shadow of a marble seat in a display window immediately draws visitors’ attention.


Inside, the project’s poetic approach, with its predominantly black and white palette, was developed not only to showcase products but also to create a space for temporary exhibitions from outside the Marsotto brand.

 

  1. Keyword: Better Together


The concept of the showroom has been reinterpreted to not only be a place to display individual products but also as a site for collaboration between multiple brands.

The new Pianca & Partners space is one example. Designed by Calvi Brambilla Studio, it showcases exhibits from around 25 interior design companies that serve a variety of sectors, including residential and hospitality. The new showroom has evolved from simply displaying products to serving as a project location, a place where professionals and architects are available for homeowners to come and jointly develop custom-made solutions.

 

  1. Designing Around A Defining Product


Design processes were also rethought. One new approach was exemplified in interiors such as that of the Luceplan showroom, where the latest project by Daniel Rybakken – the Cassette lamp collection – was the leitmotif of the setting “in a rigorous and essential aesthetic, where geometry and formal cleanliness play a central role,” as the company’s press release explains.

The showroom was built around Cassette, showcasing an alternative mode for interior styling: rather than selecting furniture based on an overall design, it showed how an entire design concept can flow from a single, central piece.

 

  1. New Ideas In Response to the Pandemic


Salone del Mobile having been cancelled this year, Milano Design City allowed design companies to present specific innovations, some of which sprung from changes prompted or imposed by the pandemic.

 

  1. Transformable furniture.

 

One clear trend, which we’re seeing at many fairs this year, is transformable furniture: pieces are becoming more and more flexible and adapting to the – often obligatory – functional changes taking place in different areas of the home.

For example, there were a lot of solutions for bringing the office into the home, while taking up as little space as possible and working multiple functions into a single piece of furniture.

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