Design Installations & Other Special Moments During Salone del Mobile // Milan 2013.

Woweee! I hear you say. Are you still banging on about Milan? Yes indeed. I’m only just warming up… The truth is that I have (a lot) more content than time, which is a bit sad given that I’d really love to share my Milan experience with you in it’s entirety. Alas, that just won’t be possible this time but perhaps I’ll work out a way to do it next year.

Until then, I wanted to chat to you about some of the wonderful moments and installations that took place during the Milan Design Week. As you’ve probably gathered, an overwhelming amount of things happens in Milan during the Design Week – from countless new products released at the Rho Fiera and big city showrooms, to installations and emerging talent shows at SaloneStellite, Tortona, Lambrate and many other areas throughout the city. When compared to previous years, 2013 was definitely quieter and more modest due to the grim state of European (and global) economy. Having said this, there was still plenty to see and do. Let’s dive in.

A Magnificent Mistake by Ron Gillard for Italian marble producer Salvatori. An installation crafted of 4 marble sculptures that explore the thin edge between realism and surrealism. In other words – amazing! Consisting of a Swing, a Smoking Roof, a Stack of Paper and footsteps, Salvatori engaged the best of their engineers and Pietrasanta craftsmanship to execute the bizarre, to put logic in the sarcastic, and bring to life Gilads’ dreams. Superb. (P.S. Salvatori stone is now available in Australia exclusively through Boffi Studio.)

This was Budri stand at Salone del Mobile – Italian marble inlay atelier know for their exclusive marble and stone work for the last 50 years. Their new collection Earthquake 5.9 is a tribute to the earthquake which struck in May 2012, affecting many business in the Emilia area including theirs.

Patricia Urquiola designed a collection of furniture and coverings, created using hundreds of fragments of the slabs that were damaged in the earthquake. Inside the stand was a secret room where fragments of marble ‘rescued’ from the slabs covered an entire wall in a mesmerizing artistic inlay designed by Urquiola. Seriously one of those “pinch-me-am-I-dreaming-cause-this-is-so-damn-beautiful” moments!

Visiting the Boffi Apartment during Salone del Mobile is always a treat, and this year was no exepction. Meticulously furnished in Living Divani furniture, the apartment is styled and furnished differently each year. See my previous posts about it here and here. Images courtesy of Boffi.

RGB Fabulous Landscapes by Carnovsky (Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla) at Fondazione Adolofo Pini in Brera where a series of installations that took place. Read more about Carnovsky’s amazing RGB experimentation and their process here, or visit my previous post about their work here.

Zigzagging installation by Carnovsky for Missoni. If Missoni hosted a rave, this is what it would feel like (and I would want to be there)! If you want to see more, watch this great video.

‘Fluidic – Sculpture in Motion’ installation designed and produced by WHITEvoid for Hyundai’s Advanced Design Center. A cloud constellation of 12,000 illuminated spheres suspended above a pool of shallow water, incorporating  high-power laser projectors. Using 3D camera tracking system, the installation could detect the presence of people, allowing viewers to manipulate the movement of light with their gestures and movement.

“Unopiù in Wonderland” in the garden of Triennale di Milano, created by Ferruccio Laviani and inspired by Lewis Carroll. Seven small colourful gazebos – fuchsia, red, emerald green and light green, blue, yellow, orange – hosted out-of-scale microworlds, hanging between reality and fiction.

Celebrating Patricia Urquiola‘s first textile collection for Kvadrat, Moroso‘s Milan showroom hosted a dynamic installation called Revolving Room with rotating pieces of embroidered fabrics hung around the edges of the space. The bottom image shows the styling of the centre table during the launch cocktail party – seriously, how hot does it look? Super beautiful.

Les Nécessaires d’Hermès installation featured a capsule collection of furniture by French designer Philippe Nigro. Also on show was the new Hermès collection of textiles and wallcoverings. Photo by Francois Lacour.

NOMADISMI, an installation curated by international trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort and Raffaele Carrieri, director of the Altai Gallery. The exhibition was on show at the Altai Gallery in Brera, showcasing avant-garde design and antique primitive carpets. The installation was a comment on the return of nomadism in the third millennium and analysing their influence on contemporary lifestyle.

Cà (local slang for house) by furniture designer Valentina Giovando and artist Elena Carozzi took place in a magnificent rented apartment on Via Solferino above the Boffi apartment. The space was transformed with handmade furniture and lighting, luxurious textiles, hand-painted wallpapers inspired by Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard’s landscapes. Although not my usual style, the space was incredibly beautiful and opulent.

The newly reopened Rijksmuseum presented new designs based on Rijksstudio in collaboration with Studio Droog and deJongeKalff. The collection, which was shown at Droog’s space on via San Gregorio, is an update of century old works using contemporary techniques and materials such as ‘Rubber tablecloth’ by deJongeKalff, and ‘Tasting glasses’ and ‘Forgotten tools’by Studio Droog.

Courtyard of Spazio Rossana Orlandi – a must-visit venue during the Design Week with bonkers amazing things happening throughout (I did find it slightly less amazing this year, however it’s still without a doubt one of my favourite places in Milan). See my previous posts about it here and here.

Tea With Georg installation by Scholten & Baijings celebrated the launch of dutch designers’ new tableware collection for Georg Jensen.

ToiletPaper magazine teamed up with Seletti to create a collection of cups, plates and tablecloths featuring eccentric imagery from the magazine. Seriously bonkers!

Tom Dixon event at MOST, complete with tea house & gift shop. Image courtesy of Tom Dixon.

E-commerce site Fab.com collaborated with The Andy Warhol Foundation on a series of foam ottomans inspired by the original Warhol Brillo Box sculptures. The ottomans were unveiled at MOST and are currently available for preorder on Fab.com.

Tom Dixon collaboration with Adidas on a clothing collection called The Capsule, which included various items that convert into multiple outfits, camping equipment and luggage. For me, probably the most exciting thing about this collaboration was the incredible setting itself – amid the old steam trains. I was too distracted by these old locomotives that I had a really hard time focussing on the clothes. Can you blame me?

Ridiculously beautiful courtyard at MOST. One of Milan’s many beautiful hidden courtyards which makes this city really special.

Studio Job for Lensvelt office furniture collaboration was presented in a highly monumental context at the Sala del Cenacolo, 18th century magnificent fresco room at MOST. This ironic and surreal installation was what I like to describe as a “holy shit moment”. Just to help you complete the picture, an old-school Marshall amp was located at the back of the room, blasting tunes from Pink Floyd. Note their promotional campaign that showed posters of well known people from with gold noses. This campaign highlight the collection’s desk finger pull detail where drawers are opened by putting a finger in the nose. Brilliant in so many ways. Photos by Roos Aldershoff.

Stone Garden by Nendo for Caesarstone. This installation was first unveiled at the 2013 Interior Design Show in Toronto, Canada in late January. “The installation explores the boundary between ‘furniture’ and ‘non-furniture’. Tables that aren’t quite tables form a cluster, creating a new kind of ground surface like a garden floating in the universe, far beyond the scale of individual tables. The unique variety and quality of natural colours and textures of the Caesarstone surfaces are perfect to be arranged in a composition like the stylized landscape of a Japanese rock garden.”

Transition by Autoban with Deborah Milano at Interni HYBRID ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN at the Università degli Studi di Milano. This project consisted of a tunnel which connected the Ground and First Floor. The installation took the form of the portal interior lined with 30,000 colourful lipstick packages. Should you be so inclined, there’s a video the building of this installation here.

Hooked Up by Dean Skira at Interni HYBRID ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN at the Università degli Studi di Milano. This 16m long pavilion, gently pinched at the waist, was created in collaboration with iGuzzini. Bespoke light fittings were produced to create a special visual linear effect by using custom made optic lenses and LED sources, allowing the space to become the source of light in a delicate and gentle way. You can watch a video of how this pavilion was built. Pretty massive job!

Inversion by Steven Holl at Interni HYBRID ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN at the Università degli Studi di Milano. This installation featured digitally cut 21 million year-old limestone from a quarry in Lecce, Italy. Ummm, wow.

COS concept pop-up store by Bonsoir Paris at Ventura Lambrate. See more in my previous post here.

2.0 Exhibition at the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, Curated by Rossana Orlandi.

Moooi Unexpected Welcome with Erwin Olaf.

Studiopepe installation for Spotti.

Danish Chromatism by Signe Byrdal Terenziani and GamFratesi at Triennale di Milano.

Ok, so that’s that. Just a couple of things really. I hope I haven’t given you motion sickness from all the scrolling! Anyway, you know the drill now. More images in the gallery below. Enjoy and see you next week!

[Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Nick Hughes for Yellowtrace.]