The best exhibitions of the Milano design week 2023

The most important week for design and for Milan ended four days ago and it’s time to analyze what
happened and tell you about the most beautiful events we have seen. Today we talk about the exhibitions, next Monday we will see the products. (Cover image Alcova, ph. Agnese Bedini, Piercarlo Quecchia, dsl studio)

The most evocative exhibitions of the 2023 Fuorisalone

Among all the events visited, we decided to select only five, not only for the contents but also for the setup. The ones that impressed us the most were:

• The Elephant in the Room organized by Byborre in collaboration with partners The Woolmark Company, Santoni, Groz-Beckert, Mayer & Cie and Südwolle Group, and the furniture design brands Montis, Arco and Lensvelt. In the beautiful “Sala della Balla” which houses the twelve Trivulzio Tapestries of the Castello Sforzesco Museums, the exhibition sought to give a greater understanding of the complexities and challenges of the textile sector. An insight into methods and production chains with the aim of increasing visitor (and customer) awareness.

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• Alessi brings the beautiful Ars Metallica to Palazzo Borromeo d’Adda: from the rediscovered roots with Il Tornitore Matto – Alberto Alessi and Giulio Iacchetti involved eight authors for as many interpretations, Anastassiades, Zupanc, Angi, Branzi, De Lucchi, Ulian, Fukasawa , Charpin and Iacchetti himself – to the desire to amaze with new ideas: we’re talking about Conversational Objects by Virgil Abloh, and rediscovered projects, such as the collaboration with Dalì – resumed 70 years after the first production. Of course, the contribution of Philippe Starck with the Poêle collection should also be mentioned, in which metal seems to lie like a precious fabric gently dropped on brown-stained beech wood.

• In Alcova, which we will naturally return to in the next few days to talk about the spaces, the Habitare Materials exhibition is worth mentioning: the temporary library of Habitare Fair organized by Nemo Architects, a real Finnish sustainable materials library. The presence of schools with IED and NABA is also interesting – the latter with the exhibition L’Alunno, a real dialogue between the projects of students and alumni of the Design Area and those of the designers, teachers at NABA.

• This year the Salone del Mobile.Milano presented its cultural program in the Euroluce 2023 pavilions, a bold choice but at the same time capable of completing the new offer: the pavilions dedicated to light in fact also saw a new layout exhibition, able to give a different solution than the typical network of trade fairs. A first attempt that paves the way for new experiments. As anticipated, the exhibitions conceived by Beppe Finessi were very interesting, especially “Nature, time and architecture”, curated and set up by Massimo Curzi, who proposed a selection of shots by Hélène Binet on the theme of the relationship between light and architecture, nature and time.

• The Isola Design Festival with Circolare – The Circular Village, Isola Design Gallery and more than 40 exhibitions and installations managed to bring – in part – an interesting point of view on sustainability with emerging designers and studios but also young foreign companies.

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Also noteworthy is the presence – perhaps less strong than in previous years – of collectible design exhibitions and artworks which, in the wake of Milan Art Week, the Milanese cultural week dedicated to art, inaugurate on Saturday positioning themselves exactly halfway between two events (Milan Art and Milan Design week), between Art and Design. A marketing strategy or the desire to be exclusive? We will see next year if it becomes a trend or not.

As always, there was no shortage of Instagrammable exhibitions and installations, devoid of a real meaning but a fundamental means for the like on Instagram, which we will avoid talking about.

We conclude by saying that, although some companies have focused more on the Salone del Mobile, even the showrooms have been able to present very interesting spaces and installations, able to compete with those of the Fuorisalone, with interesting product innovations and new inspirations for the domestic spaces. We will look into these aspects in detail next week.

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