Milan Design Week Archives

Apr

20

2018

By way of celebrating designer Achille Castiglioni’s centenary Italian lighting manufacturer Flos used Milan Design Week 2018 to launch re-editions of two Castiglioni designs: Ventosa and Nasa.

Objects which in their own, small, ways allow for an insight into Achille Castiglioni’s approach to, and understanding of, design.

Apr

19

2018

We’re great believers in Fate, in the guiding principle that if it is meant to be, it will be: not least because it protects us from the expectations of achievement.

Further proof of the veracity of Fate was provided by our meeting during Milan Design Week 2018 with the project Moorwerk by Jan Christian Schulz.

Apr

18

2018

Milan Furniture Fair 2018, at least amongst those more design led manufacturers, is/was largely about consolidation, largely about new materials, new colours, slight changes to existing objects, with one or the other family proudly presenting their latest members. Which is no complaint, far from it, Milan’s speciality traditionally being the new for the sake of the new, that misguided belief that one has to present something new every year. You don’t. Present something new when you’ve got something new to say, something new to contribute, something meaningful.

Largely ≇ exclusively and there were a few new projects to be found which did have something new to say, did have something new to contribute, were something meaningful. If not enough for a handful. Sure we could have added another project just to compete the quintet, there being no shortage of candidates to choose from, but then just as we don’t expect manufacturers to publish for the sake of the new rather for the quality, so we don’t publish for the sake of the five….

As ever we didn’t see everything, have without question missed things we shouldn’t have missed, things we will regret missing later, apologies all round, but, and with that in mind, our Milan Furniture Fair 2018: High Four!!

Apr

17

2018

Whereas exhibitions in which designers show prototypes and discontinued projects by way of explaining who they are, where they come from and how they work, are a, relatively, regular occurrence, exhibitions in which manufacturers do such are much, much rarer: with the exhibition Typecasting Vitra make a very rare and very welcome exception

And in doing so don’t just present an image not only of Vitra past, but also take a look into the future…..

Apr

16

2018

Curated by Carwan Gallery Beirut co-founder Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, Unsighted presents projects by eight international designers; the title making reference to the fact that the designers weren’t told for what they were being commissioned, had no external context; were working, as it were, Unsighted.

During Milan Design Week 2018 all became clearer…

Apr

08

2017

Backrests appeared to be a major feature of those new products Konstantin Grcic presented at Milan Furniture Fair 2017. Or perhaps better put, from those new product we saw by Konstantin Grcic, we interpreted the backrest as being central components. But it wasn’t all about backrests, a few thoughts on new products for Magis, Plank, Flos and Mattiazzi.

Apr

07

2017

Much as we moan, moan, and moan about Milan Furniture Fair, it is a rare opportunity to get a snapshot of where individual designers are currently at: differing products for differing manufacturers being displayed in relatively proximity allowing for a nice overview. A few considerations on the latest projects by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra, Magis, Flos and Mattiazzi.

Apr

05

2017

As older readers will be well aware, little gets us down quite like Milan Furniture Fair. Every year our only wish as we cross the Alps is that we will find something to make us thankful that we did. Milan Furniture Fair 2017 produced more such moments than the average year, which we suppose means we’ll be back next year!!

Our Milan Furniture Fair 2017 High Five!!

May

03

2016

Unbelievably, Eindhoven based design studio Daphna Laurens have never, ever, participated at Salone Satellite, that section of the Milan furniture

Apr

26

2016

Low Chair and Stool by Kaspar Hamacher with Tannerie Radermecker, on the wall Bag on Wall by Mathias van de Walle with Ralph Baggeley, as seen at Belgian Matters, Milan 2016

As we believe is now traditional at this time of year….. ….. every year at Milan Design Week the Belgian

Apr

25

2016

Modular bicycle bag/briefcase by Silvio Rebholz and Louis Michel, from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart project Più di Pegoretti (Photo courtesy AKB Stuttgart)

Every time we are in Milan, be it for the Design Week or simply to enjoy the city without the

Apr

20

2016

It’s been a good long while since we last posted about the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe’s kkaarrlls collection, and thus

Apr

18

2016

Established in 2002 Danish label HAY have quickly risen to become an important player in the European furniture and home

Apr

17

2016

To the casual observer selecting five outstanding products from the Milan Furniture Fair is a neigh on impossible task, so

May

11

2015

Several visitors to the Milan furniture fair with whom we spoke, including some whose judgement on such matters we value

Apr

28

2015

It was invariably more through good fortune than good planning; however, at Milan Furniture Fair 2015 Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s

Apr

25

2015

Privately and professionally we have long complained about, and been deeply saddened by, the lack of side/coffee tables with a

Apr

22

2015

Back in the hazy mists of 2014 the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts, Leipzig presented Sitting – Lying – Swinging.

Apr

21

2015

In the late 19th/early 20th century Vienna based J & J Kohn helped establish the Austro-Hungarian Empire as an important

Apr

20

2015

Clown optic - Not good. Textile - very good.

Upon seeing Rui Alves’s Bridge armchair prototype at IMM Cologne 2015 we commented on the unfamiliar, and for us not

Apr

19

2015

For reasons far too abstract, intangible, and potentially libellous, to go into, we didn’t report on the inaugural presentation of

Apr

18

2015

Given that all we have too many household accessories and our planet too few natural resources to justify continually producing

Apr

17

2015

For us one of the few genuine joys of Milan Design Week is observing visitors to the furniture fair perching

Apr

07

2015

Michael Geldmacher Eva Paster Neuland Industriedesign

It being early April Milan furniture fair once again stands before us and with it the promise of untold column

May

04

2014

We round up our Milan 2014 coverage with a company we admire, but about whom we find it all but

Category: Milan Design Week