Category_Exhibitions
Our Highlights - London Design Festival 2019
Every April, the international design community descends upon Italy for Milan Design Week. It’s two main components are Salone del Mobile, the world’s largest design fair, and ‘Fuorisalone’, the moniker given to the various installations, presentations and events happening in central Milan’s numerous design districts.
We were excited to unveil four new ranges, as well as host an exhibition in collaboration with Brazilian furniture gallery ESPASSO, called CONNECTIONS, and create pop-up retail displays in two la Rinascente stores to celebrate their store-wide, green-themed event for the design week.
Outside of Tala’s busy trifecta of activity, I was able to sneak away to see some of the best that Milan Design Week had to offer. Read on below for some of my highlights!
Mater Design
The Danish design brand with sustainability at its core, Mater celebrated the launch of new pieces by Space Copenhagen and the new Ocean range by Jorgen & Nana Ditzel. A re-issued design originally from 1955, the updated version boasts a slightly bigger proportion to suit the modern human body and is made from recycled ocean plastic waste.
Ethimo
Ethimo is an Italian brand specialising in contemporary outdoor design. Green was this year’s theme on the Salone stand, relating to the nature-inspired design of many of the pieces of the new collection.
Vitra
One of the world’s most iconic design brands divided their stand into four, and used the design to explain different approaches to life.
Tom Dixon - The Manzoni
Tom Dixon’s latest design innovations feature prominently in his brand new permanent restaurant in the centre of Milan. Expect fine Italian food, but it’s far from just a restaurant. It incorporates a dining hall, bar, art gallery, and ‘Jungle’ for events, so that quiet civilised meals seamlessly transform into lavish club nights at the blink of an eye.
H+O - Perfect Darkness
A multi-room, omni-sensory experience in a central Milan apartment, this installation juxtaposed a number of environments that varied in brightness and darkness, to challenge the concept of ‘home’ and living.
Rossana Orlandi - Guiltless Plastic: Ro Plastic Prize Exhibition
Orlandi’s famous ‘Guiltless Plastic’ initiative originally started in 2018 as a proactive effort to change plastic use and consumption. The initiative continued this year with the Ro Plastic Prize competition, where winners were chosen for the most innovative designs made from recycled plastic.
Honorable Mentions:
Alcova Sassetti
Kvadrat x Raf Simons
Studiopepe - ‘Les Arcanistes’
Google & Reddymade - Neuroaesthetics installation
Salone del Mobile
Sancal Inspired by Milan’s Turati Metro station, Sancal’s Pavilion at Salone combined bold geometries and grey industrial tones to emulate the station’s industrial aesthetic. Eccentricities appeared in the pops of colour, vibrant yellows and reds, which caught the eye and drew visitors into the contemporary interpretation.
Mater Design
The Danish design brand with sustainability at its core, Mater celebrated the launch of new pieces by Space Copenhagen and the new Ocean range by Jorgen & Nana Ditzel. A re-issued design originally from 1955, the updated version boasts a slightly bigger proportion to suit the modern human body and is made from recycled ocean plastic waste.
Ethimo
Ethimo is an Italian brand specialising in contemporary outdoor design. Green was this year’s theme on the Salone stand, relating to the nature-inspired design of many of the pieces of the new collection.
Vitra
One of the world’s most iconic design brands divided their stand into four, and used the design to explain different approaches to life.
Euroluce
Lasvit Lasvit’s ‘The Theory of Light’ explored four elements (Reflection, Perception, Spectrum & Nature) that created beautiful light, with an installation that represented each of the four different attributes. Design Holding ( Flos, B&B Italia, Louis Poulsen) Making their debut at this year’s Salone del Mobile, Design Holding is the collaborative supergroup formed from three of world’s most accomplished design brands. One large stand in three very separate, distinct zones, the big three used their history and iconic reputations as a common thread to unite products, new launches and design sensibilities. Paul Matter The New-Delhi based design studio unite clean lines and a broad material palette to exemplify it’s polished, minimal style at this year’s Salone. Artemide Artemide combines smart lighting technologies with notions of ‘Human and Responsible’ light and created an interactive stand experience that invited users to explore light via its environmental quality and emotive abilities.Fuorisalone
COS x Arthur Mamou-Mani - Conifera Leading architect Arthur Mamou-Mani approaches sustainability through disruptive design methodologies, and utilised a new compostable bioplastic material to build a modular installation in the iconic Palazzo isimbardi.
Tom Dixon - The Manzoni
Tom Dixon’s latest design innovations feature prominently in his brand new permanent restaurant in the centre of Milan. Expect fine Italian food, but it’s far from just a restaurant. It incorporates a dining hall, bar, art gallery, and ‘Jungle’ for events, so that quiet civilised meals seamlessly transform into lavish club nights at the blink of an eye.
H+O - Perfect Darkness
A multi-room, omni-sensory experience in a central Milan apartment, this installation juxtaposed a number of environments that varied in brightness and darkness, to challenge the concept of ‘home’ and living.
Rossana Orlandi - Guiltless Plastic: Ro Plastic Prize Exhibition
Orlandi’s famous ‘Guiltless Plastic’ initiative originally started in 2018 as a proactive effort to change plastic use and consumption. The initiative continued this year with the Ro Plastic Prize competition, where winners were chosen for the most innovative designs made from recycled plastic.
Honorable Mentions:
Alcova Sassetti
Kvadrat x Raf Simons
Studiopepe - ‘Les Arcanistes’
Google & Reddymade - Neuroaesthetics installation
