Italy’s strong positioning in the design industry was underlined this year at the Milan Furniture Fair which is also known as the Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano or ‘Milan Design Week’. The event was first launched in 1961 by a small coalition of furniture manufacturers to promote the business of Italian furniture. The Salone has reached its 52nd edition this year and took place in Fiera Milano, Rho, from April 9 to 14, with over 2,500 Italian and foreign exhibitors participating. It was a week packed with events, exhibitions and presentations where everyone who’s anyone on the international furniture design and manufacturing scene came together to keep up with the latest developments in the field. With 324,093 visitors from around the world, the Milan Furniture Fair today is arguably the most prestigious international furniture design and trade event.
For almost a week, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano was held together with several biennale events including the Euroluce (International Lighting Exhibition), Salone Ufficio (International Biennal Workspace Exhibition) and the Salone Satellite for young designers. These events were an offshoot of the ‘iSaloni’ organized by Cosmit, a member of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) and Association for Industrial Design (ADI).
Office for Living
The highlight of this year’s iSaloni is an installation by a well-known French architect, Jean Nouvel, the recipient of architecture’s highest honour, the Pritzker Prize. Entitled ‘Project: Office for Living’, Jean Nouvel’s mega-sized installation was set up on a 1,200 square-meter space inside the Salone Ufficio’s pavilion, illustrating the architect’s vision of a future workspace, underlining just how outdated today’s attitudes to the workplace really are.
“In 30 or 40 years time we will be stunned to see just how ‘unliveable’ most of today’s offices really were,” said Nouvel, whose project is based on his reflection about how working has become an integral part of living as people often spend more time at the office than they do at home. “We have to change our behaviors, plan and think of work with a different mindset”, Nouvel elaborated. “No matter where an office is situated, it has to have a space it can call its own: identifiable, alterable, on a human scale, with its own history and objects, an enjoyable environment, basically.”
The ‘Office for Living’ exhibit took the form of a small district showcasing unique and unusual office scenarios that try to demonstrate that, because of their individuality, workspaces must be able to make for happy living as well as provide inspiration. Nouvel’s installation rejects standardized and serially repetitive spaces, inspiring exhibitors and visitors with different ways of achieving alternative workspace design solutions.
One of the most stunning scenarios saw a warehouse converted into an office. Nouvel proves that the wall-less open spaces frees up creative latitude for flexible furnishing, lighting and decorating solutions. The scope for unfettered conversion is what sets the free space apart.
Great Findings
iSaloni not only inspires creative ideas nor is it merely a massive trading event. It is where we can witness impressive innovations through which we can see a glimpse of the future. Senior as well as young designers are challenged to come up with something that can make the world a better place to live.
The Euroluce, for instance – an international lighting exhibition that has become the global benchmark for the lighting world – doesn’t only showcase cool-looking products. Top-designed products have to be able to answer increasingly cutting-edge issues such as eco-sustainability and energy saving.
Rising to the challenge is QStudio of Chile, who presented a product called LUM. It is a copper modular panel system with solid and light components. In Chile copper is abundant and its natural properties make it very attractive for interior applications. Being a natural anti-bacterial and developing a unique patina with time, copper makes every installation dynamic. The panels are responsibly manufactured by inmates at Colina prison, thereby contributing to their rehabilitation and integration back into society.
The Natevo is a new concept of furniture inspired by residential illumination. Comprising furniture and accessories integrated with light fixtures, these functional and decorative pieces shine light on our surroundings and also create scenographic, surprising and unexpected effects. Collaboration between a group of designers – Carlo Colombo, Pinuccio Borgonovo and studio ThesiaProgetti – resulted in the collection of luminous armchairs, chairs, tables, coffee tables and accessories that give light a brand new meaning. In the iSaloni, the Natevo exhibit required designers to rethink how they light a space, and to consider lighting a space with furniture.
Debuting new projects at Salone Satellite was the up-and-coming Portuguese designer, Rui Alves. The Red Dot Award winner is famous for making furniture with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. His furniture collection explores the simplicity, equilibrium and strength of its structure –a good match between technology and craftsmanship. One of his products showcased at the Salone Satellite is a sofa made from ash wood, treated with basalt water varnish and upholstered with 100 percent wool. It was a big hit.
Another wonder to behold was the ‘Quiet Motion’, a carousel-like installation by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for the BMWi. It rotates slowly and silently, illustrating the movement of the BMWi engine. Each part of the installation has been made to remind people of the superiority of the BMW, making ‘Quiet Motion’ exactly as the designer described: “… a poetic abstraction of modern nomad-ism by bringing motion into harmony with its surroundings …”
From Japan, YOY design studio presented a series of two- dimensional hanging furniture pieces. Constructed out of wood and aluminum, the frames are covered by an elastic fabric screen-printed with drawings of different types of exclusive furniture. The piece works when the frame is leaned against a wall, stretching when weight is applied. Available in three different sizes, the hanging seats come in stool, love seat and sofa variations.
Mark your calendar next year for the next iSaloni on April 8 – 13.
