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.

Flos present Achille Castiglioni - If you are not curious forget it, Milan Design Week 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.

Moorwerk by Jan Christian Schulz, as seen at ein&zwanzig, Milan Design Week 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…..

Vitra -Typecasting, as seen at Milan Design Week 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…

Unsighted, Milan Design Week 2018

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

Design is 10 Years Old - Lamp/Side Table by Clemens Lauer, as seen at kkaarrlls 2016, Milan

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

Ulisse Daybed by Konstantin Grcic for ClassiCon, as seen at Milan Furniture Fair 2016

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

USM - Rethink the Modular, Milan Design Week 2015

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer’s USM Haller modular furniture system USM instigated a series

Uffici Chair by Nitzan Cohen for Mattiazzi, as seen at Milan Furniture Fair 2015

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

Belgium is Design - Confronting the Masters, Milan 2015

As is becoming traditional the interregional initiative Belgium is Design used Milan Design Week to present a showcase of contemporary

Duple Alexander Åsgård

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

101.86 black Thomas Vailly & Laura Lynn Jansen, as seen at Dutch Invertuals - Body Language, Milan Design Week 2015

As a general rule, what you don’t say is more important than what you do say: your body language famously

Ateliers J & J Milan 2015

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

USM Privacy Panels

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

Ripple by Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, as seen at Ventura Lambrate, Milan 2015

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

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

milan preview

“Okay so is there ANYTHING interesting happening in Milan this year?” asked dezeen founder and Editor in Chief Marcus Fairs

Milan Design Week 2013 Granoff Sofa by Scot Bailey Taylor McKenzie-Veal Ian Stell Yumi Yoshida

Probably on account of all the wood, upcycling and back-to-basics on show at Milan Design Week 2013, Granoff Sofa by

Milan Design Week 2013 Roll and Hill at Euroluce

As we believe we’ve said before it is always especially pleasing when a designer you first got to know as

Object Limited Edition Design at MIART Milan 2013 Libreria Volumi Sospesi Matteo Casalegno Galleria Paola Colombari

Before Milan Design Week and Furniture Fair really get started we took the opportunity to relax a little and to

Billed as being an “… experimental, collaborative journalism project that aims to lift the lid on the design world to

As you know we’re no huge fans of Milan. Love the city. Don’t love the size and cost of their

The Triennale Design Museum Milan opened their exhibition “Dream Factories: People, ideas and paradoxes of Italian design” a week before

Burg Giebichenstein graduates Stephan Schulz and Paul Evermann are presenting a joint show at this years Salone Satellite with each