Milan Design Week 2019: hi-tech interiors steal the show — from Artifical Intelligence and 3D-printing to futuristic furniture made from food waste

Get the lowdown on the Milan design fair, where designers are thinking through food waste, environmental problems and AI skills.
1/11
Barbara Chandler24 April 2019

Milan Design Week has pushed technology to its limits. Artificial intelligence (AI) designed a skeletal chair with “minimum material” (Kartell) and a 3D printed canopy of bio resin (Cos).

Sony had human-centric “friendly” robots and LG an impossibly thin “rollable” TV screen whizzing down into a table top. A kaleidoscopic 14m tower was filled with silvery butterflies courtesy of designer Matteo Thun and 3M reflective film.

Most top fashion brands now do homewares. In Milan, Gucci’s pop-up was a cacophony of prints on every surface (it will stay open until June). Versace’s specially decorated “apartment” was similarly jazzy (if you could get in).

Not surprisingly, among the 400 events, and of course the huge Milan Furniture Fair (the 58th edition of the Salone del Mobile), it is the Italian furniture brands that dominate. Most of them now have London outposts with new Milan pieces coming soon.

Brompton Road is already a little Italy, with splendid Minotti on the corner. Opposite is Kartell, plastic supremo, then elegant Cassina, up-beat B&B Italia, and refined Boffi, with leather masters Poltrona Frau in the Fulham Road.

Natuzzi is on the Tottenham Court Road, with Artemide lighting near by. Cappellini, king of cool, and quirky Moroso are both in Clerkenwell, and witty Alessi is just off Regent Street.

There were curves galore. Welsh-born Ross Lovegrove, self-proclaimed “Captain Organic”, fashioned a stripey silvery wood into an undulating bedroom ensemble which passed a strict eco-audit (at Natuzzi). Monumentally rounded furniture by the American-Nigerian designer Ini Archibong for brand Sé was inspired by weathered standing stones (it has a showroom on the Fulham Road, SW3).

Milan was mourning Alessandro Mendini, quixotic and poetic architect and designer, who died in February, aged 87. But his spirit continues in a new batch of surreal design (witness patterns by Adam Nathaniel Furman, cupboards by Altreform and surreal giraffe lights and rabbit furniture by Qeeboo). A tribute cabinet was by BD Barcelona.

Food and design

And design has moved into food. Witness a big show next month at the V&A. Bigger Than The Plate will look at the “politics and pleasure” of eating. At the Roca Gallery in Chelsea, a show explores “agritecture” — buildings that can grow food (rocalondongallery.com). In Milan curator Marva Griffin asked the young designers of the Fair’s SaloneSatellite to consider Food as a Design Object.

Focus on food waste: a Mirei Monticelli Nebula lamp with a shade made from banana fibre

Making use of food waste was popular, turning banana fibres into lights, for example, coffee grounds into a stool and rescuing hides discarded after slaughter. London’s Tom Dixon has opened a Milan restaurant as a platform for old favourites and new processes for furniture and lighting.

Problem-solving design

Milan, not before time, is exploring ideas as well as products. London curator/lecturer Alice Rawsthorn calls this Design as an Attitude, the title of her latest book (Amazon, £15). In simplest terms, designers use their analytical/creative expertise to solve problems (environmental, human, societal and economic).

Tackling such issues is the huge exhibition Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival (until September 1, 2019) in the Triennale di Milano arts centre, curated by the celebrated Paola Antonelli from MoMA in New York. First we see the harm mankind has already done on giant screens, and made into a pattern of depressing graphs on wallpaper.

Designers, however, can fight back: see how in 100 case studies from quirky art statements to serious interventions. These are essentially individual, such as Londoner Daniel Charny’s Fixperts programme for repair, or Martino Gamper’s upcycling marathon making 100 chairs in 100 days. But until radicalised governments and big business commit to eco action, the earth may have a sad future.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in