Fair  April 16, 2024  Carlota Gamboa

Function & Aesthetics are Evolving at Milan Design Week 2024

© Salone del Mobile.Milano

Under the Surface, Curated by Accurat, Design Group, Italia and Emiliano Ponzi (Salotto NYC), International Bathroom Exhibition, Pavillion 10

Expecting to receive more than 300,000 visitors, Salone del Mobile— the world’s largest fair for furniture and design— begins its 62nd iteration on April 16th. Taking over the Rho Fiera exhibition complex, the week brings together innovative installations, panels, and events to the city of Milan. This year’s theme, Where Design Evolves, invites spectators to push beyond functionality, as the fair explores how everyday objects can (and will) shape the vision of our lives in the future.

In addition to the 2,000 featured exhibitors, the biannual EuroCucina, which first premiered during the 1974 Design Week, will display its “Technology For the Kitchen” exhibition. Approximately 50 vendors will set up shop and propose new materials, trends, and organizational techniques for the modern cooking space. This is paired with the “All You Have Ever Wanted to Know About Food Design in Six Performances" project, a program of installations by global food publications that explore the intimate role of food.

© Salone del Mobile.Milano

Interiors of David Lynch. A Thinking Room Curated by Antonio Monda Salone Internazionale del Mobile Pavilions 5-7

Another major part of this year’s fair is the International Bathroom Exhibition, entitled “Under the Surface,” created by Accurat, Design Group Italia, and design studio Salotto NY. Aiming to highlight intentionality in the face of climate consciousness, the installation is curated as a submerged island and asks the viewer, through elements of design, what can be done to mitigate our habits of water consumption within the bathroom.

Among names like Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Loewe, the acclaimed surrealist director, David Lynch, is also featured in the catalogue of exhibitors. Curated by fellow filmmaker and writer, Antonio Monda, and staged by Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Lynch launches his “Thinking Rooms.” The two installations serve as meditative walkways lined with screens displaying scenes from Lynch’s cinematic works. The immersive experience acts as a portal to alternate dimensions, ones that allow an expansion past routine understandings of the mundane. “Entering his ‘Thinking Room’ will be like crossing into another world,” says Salone del Mobile President, Maria Porro, as reported by Wallpaper, “and what are interior spaces if not research and creation of objects that complete a home, or even a room, to make us feel safe within our subconscious?” The fair runs until the 21st of April.

About the Author

Carlota Gamboa

Carlota Gamboa is an art writer based in Los Angeles.

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