Now in its 61st edition, the Salone del Mobile returns to Milan from April 17 to 23, 2023, transforming, along with Fuorisalone, Salone Satellite and Euroluce, the face of the city.
This year's program is packed and seems to be aiming at the many facets of design. It is not always easy to find your way around the districts and among the myriad of themes proposed by brands and institutions, so intOndo takes you through some of the places not to be missed.
Design Week this year is going to be the stage for the centennial celebration of the Milan Triennale, one of Milan's iconic design institutions. At the Museum of Italian Design, an exhibition curated by Marco Sammicheli traces the history of the institution from its founding in 1923 in Monza as the Biennale of Decorative Arts to the present day. The exhibition recounts the technological, material and social research that has transformed the identity, aesthetics and main characteristics of Italian design. A true full immersion not to be missed.
But design practices also become a valuable tool to provide the coordinates for understanding the present and contemporary, returning visions and suggestions for the future. Focused on the themes of circular economy, reuse, and sustainability of processes and materials, Fuorisalone becomes the bearer of this important message through the arts in their broadest definition.
For those interested in the contamination of art and design, we recommend the exhibition organized by Maison Matisse, which invited British designer Faye Toogood to interpret a Chinese black ink drawing on white paper from Henri Matisse's book Dessins: Thèmes et Variations (1943) by Henri Matisse. The result is a collection of living room and bedroom furniture that reveals a lesser-known aspect of the master's work, emphasizing his black-and-white drawings, far from the colorful pieces we typically associate with him.
If, during the design week, you are instead looking for an unprecedented Milan, we recommend a visit to Alcova, the traveling platform founded by Joseph Grima (Space Caviar) and Valentina Ciuffi (Studio Vedèt) that has been spectacularly occupying abandoned urban spaces in Milan since 2018. For its fifth edition, Alcova invites the public to explore the former Slaughterhouse of Porta Vittoria, a monumental industrial complex that will host more than 70 projects exploring different directions of contemporary design, from innovative and sustainable materials to contemporary craftsmanship and sensory design, with the participation of institutions, established brands and studios and emerging talents.
And fashion will also make its entrance during Design week: we're looking forward to the double FuturLiberty exhibition, organized by the London department store Liberty at the Museo del Novecento and Palazzo Morando to delve into the historical research of the Futurists and Vorticists on the brand's interior and fashion textiles.
Finally this year, art, historical design and vintage furniture will also be out there… you will not only find our unique items online at intOndo.com, but also around town. Thanks to a collaboration with Garage Italia, our 500 years of design will travel around Milan in an electric 500 Spiaggina. No better way to bring the past into our future in style.