Design week in Milan: 6 events you shouldn't miss during Fuorisalone

A guide to Milan's Fuorisalone 2023 district by district

Fuorisalone is the event that turns Milan’s daily rhythm on its head: Milan Design Week — set this year for April 17-23, 2023 — also transforms shared spaces.

The best places to go? There are countless events from Brera to Alcova, 5VIE, Isola Design Festival, Via Tortona and Barona, so here you can find some tips on what to do and what to see.

1. Euroluce

At Rho Fiera Milano, the new set-up of the Euroluce lighting biennial, in its 31st and first post-pandemic edition, brings the experience of visiting back to a human dimension with the new set-up designed by Lombardini22. By studying a model that describes the movements of visitors as if they flowed within an urban context, the designers came to the conclusion that the first legacy to fall was the traditional fair set up with an orthogonal grid, with wide boulevards and "alleyways". intensive. The new urban-inspired scheme brings Euroluce closer to the forma urbis of the city that hosts it, Milan. A new matrix of irregular rings introduces visitors into a loop that balances moments of rest and expansions of vision thanks to exhibitions and cultural activities. From there, we invite you to continue along the privileged path in the forge of creativity under 35: the SaloneSatellite, in its twenty-fourth edition. 550 talents selected from 27 international design schools and universities were asked to answer the question "Design: WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO?". The goal is to create a map that connects the different visions of the graduates to be.

2. Alcova

After taking the visitors of the Fuorisalone, in order, to a former bakery in NoLo, a textile factory on the island and a military hospital in Baggio, the project conceived by Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima in 2018 invests and "reactivates ” a new location in ruins, the Ex-Slaughterhouse of Porta Vittoria. This is the last chance to see the 20,000-square-metre Art Nouveau complex as it is, before the start of an impressive regeneration project that will lead to the creation of a new residential district, the IED campus, a museum and a park. The program is as always varied, with the projects of over 70 exhibitors including independent designers, institutions (for example the LUMA of Arles, present with its research center Atelier LUMA), galleries and collectives, all characterized by an experimental approach.

3. Brera

With over 240 events, the Brera Design Week is linked to the general theme proposed by the Fuorisalone: Laboratorio Futuro, an invitation to design new scenarios to respond to the challenges of the contemporary. The brief is interpreted by a multitude of actors, divided between the realities that have their permanent headquarters in these streets – over 180, with a dozen new openings – and those that instead have chosen to occupy one of the many rented locations. Among the many proposals we point out, as far as lighting is concerned, the Light-Floating Reflection installation by Ingo Maurer (at the Porta Nuova toll booths), a thirty-metre-long carpet painted in fluorescent colors that crosses the arch in mid-air of stone, and the Enlightment project by Nemo Lighting with the artistic direction of Ron Gilad, straddling industrial and collectible design. At the Tempesta Gallery (Foro Bonaparte), the works conceived between the 1960s and the 2000s by the artist-engineer Piero Fogliati dialogue with the furnishings produced by Riva 1920, designed by masters such as Enzo Mari, Renzo Piano and Mario Botta with the reuse of " Venetian bricole”. Design Variations, the event curated by MoscaPartners, returns to the Circolo Filologico (with a site-specific intervention by Zaven on the façade) and opens the Istituto Marchiondi Spagliardi to the public for the first time, a brutalist masterpiece by Vittoriano Viganò in Baggio. Here, Reforming Future is staged, the exhibition of projects from the master's course held by Michele De Lucchi and Andrea Branzi at the Polytechnic.

4. Isola

The Isola district continues to focus on circularity and regeneration. It is no coincidence that this year's motto is Nothing happens if nothing happens, to be understood as "nothing happens if nobody acts". The proposals are even more numerous and invest over 40 places inside and outside the boundaries of the district: in Piazza Città di Lombardia, for example, Circolare-The Circular Village showcases raw materials, biomaterials and products made with industrial waste, while Tools & Crafts (at the Catella Foundation) looks at craftsmanship with the sensitivity of Millennials and Gen Z and with new tools such as artificial intelligence, and Take Care! (at Stecca3) explores the theme of care, in the narrow and broad sense. An exclave of Isola in the Certosa district, Innovation for Living is a 3,000 square meter focus on technology applied to design, with an installation designed by the Pininfarina studio.

5. Tortona

Today, four different initiatives coexist in via Tortona and its surroundings, each with its own identity: Tortona Rocks, BASE, Superstudio Più and Tortona Design Week. Tortona Rocks looks to the future by asking the question How do you take care of tomorrow? and trying to provide a series of answers to Opificio 31 and other neighboring locations. Furthermore, it becomes the protagonist of a "territorial digression" in the nearby Giambellino popular district with the Altrove project developed together with the MilanoSecrets platform. A heterogeneous series of shops – a pasta factory, a bookshop, a poultry shop… – are transformed into stages for the creations of emerging designers. At BASE, young designers, schools and institutions gather around the We Will Design programmatic manifesto and the values summarized by the acronym IDEA: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, while the five protagonists of the Temporary Home residency program interact with the public . The Superdesign Show is staged at Superstudio Più, where futuristic installations coexist with the exploration of the traditions of some East Asian countries.

6. Porta Venezia

The Porta Venezia district hosts a new Fuorisalone district. Not to be missed: the immersive installation Journey by the Turkish studio Nohlab from MEET, which in 12 and a half minutes opens up a series of questions at the limit of human knowledge, the optimistic and visionary projects of the Singaporean designers selected by Maria Cristina Didero and Tony Chambers for Future Impact (inside the west gate of the Bastioni, future site of the Museum of Digital Art directed by Ilaria Bonacossa), and the collective centered on the art of glass set up by WonderGlass at the Instituto dei Ciechi. At the edge of the district, the Bar Basso , a city institution, celebrates the 55th anniversary of the Negroni Sbagliato and the entry of the "big glass" in which it is served with Hidden Sound. The Swiss company has created a limited edition of audio systems, on display during the design week, and a playlist. To see in Via Rosolino Pilo: the new Palma plant shop.

And also... what did we find particularly interesting?

The brand Colmar invites us to reflect on the theme of reuse. Thanks to the meeting with the very young Dutch designer Kees Dekkers, "Colmar Again" was born, a project where art meets the company in the year of its centenary, along the road to ever greater awareness linked to environmental sustainability. Decommissioned or defective garments or their components (fabrics, ribbons, buttons, logos), destined for pulping, receive a second chance inside the No Waste Chair, a container chair made of recycled transparent plexiglass to make the content. The project will see 20 chairs, each filled differently and therefore unique in its kind, exhibited at the store in Piazza Gae Aulenti in Milan with a suggestive installation.

Where: Colmar Flagship Store — Piazza Gae Aulenti, 6 - From 17 to 23 April

Have a nice visit!

© L.V.