Category: Fuorisalone
Milan Furniture Fair 2019: High Five!!
Aside from the, inevitable, consolidation the main theme at Milan Furniture Fair 2019, and the one which occupied us much more than that which was on show for our perusal, is/was the international furniture industry’s increasing hunger for data; a hunger which embodied itself at Milan 2019 in a exponential surge in the number of manufacturers requiring potential stand visitors to either pre-register, submit a business card or have their Fair ticket scanned before being allowed onto the stand.
No data. No entry.
And a state of affairs on which we have penned several hundred (agitated) words; but, this is neither the time nor place for them. We will however return to them at a later date, not least because the scale of the shift we witnessed at Milan 2019 suggests that as a development it is on it way to becoming standard. Which ain’t good.
Elsewhere the halls of Milan were busier with visitors in 2019 than we remember them for many a long a year, the weather in 2019 cooler than we remember for many a long year, and despair and delight stood as close to one another as every year
And in that sense, and as ever accepting we may have missed one or two gems, not least because we decided against sharing our data in order to view new items of furniture manufacturers had, allegedly, brought to Milan to promote, and so subsequently weren’t on a lot of stands, a smow Blog Milan 2019 High Five!!
Milan Design Week 2018 Compact: Flos present Achille Castiglioni – If you are not curious, forget it
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.
Milan Design Week 2018 Compact: Moorwerk by Jan Christian Schulz
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.
Milan Design Week 2018 Compact: Vitra – Typecasting
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…..
Milan Design Week 2018 Compact: Unsighted
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…
smow blog compact Milan 2016 special: Studio Daphna Laurens – Prototipi
Unbelievably, Eindhoven based design studio Daphna Laurens have never, ever, participated at Salone Satellite, that section of the Milan furniture
smow blog compact Milan 2016 special: Belgian Matters
As we believe is now traditional at this time of year….. ….. every year at Milan Design Week the Belgian
smow blog compact Milan 2016 special: Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart present Più di Pegoretti
Every time we are in Milan, be it for the Design Week or simply to enjoy the city without the
smow blog compact Milan 2016 special: kkaarrlls
It’s been a good long while since we last posted about the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe’s kkaarrlls collection, and thus
smow blog compact Milan 2016 special: HAY
Established in 2002 Danish label HAY have quickly risen to become an important player in the European furniture and home
Milan Furniture Fair 2016: High Five!
To the casual observer selecting five outstanding products from the Milan Furniture Fair is a neigh on impossible task, so
smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: USM – Rethink the Modular
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer’s USM Haller modular furniture system USM instigated a series
smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: Uffici Chair by Nitzan Cohen for Mattiazzi
Several visitors to the Milan furniture fair with whom we spoke, including some whose judgement on such matters we value
smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: Belgium is Design – Confronting the Masters
As is becoming traditional the interregional initiative Belgium is Design used Milan Design Week to present a showcase of contemporary
smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
It was invariably more through good fortune than good planning; however, at Milan Furniture Fair 2015 Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s
smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: Duple by Alexander Åsgård
Privately and professionally we have long complained about, and been deeply saddened by, the lack of side/coffee tables with a
smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: Thonet
Back in the hazy mists of 2014 the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts, Leipzig presented Sitting – Lying – Swinging.
smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: Ateliers J&J
In the late 19th/early 20th century Vienna based J & J Kohn helped establish the Austro-Hungarian Empire as an important
smow blog compact Milan 2015 Special: Pilot Chair by Barber Osgerby for Knoll
Upon seeing Rui Alves’s Bridge armchair prototype at IMM Cologne 2015 we commented on the unfamiliar, and for us not
smow blog compact Milan 2015 Special: USM Privacy Panels
For reasons far too abstract, intangible, and potentially libellous, to go into, we didn’t report on the inaugural presentation of
smow blog compact Milan 2015 Special: Ripple by Hiroyuki Ikeuchi
Given that all we have too many household accessories and our planet too few natural resources to justify continually producing
Milan Design Week 2015: On Seating…..
For us one of the few genuine joys of Milan Design Week is observing visitors to the furniture fair perching
Michael Geldmacher: “I would always encourage any designer to at least attempt to get paid for the development of a project.”
It being early April Milan furniture fair once again stands before us and with it the promise of untold column
(smow) blog compact Milan 2014 Special: USM Haller
We round up our Milan 2014 coverage with a company we admire, but about whom we find it all but
(smow) blog compact Milan 2014 Special: Sarah Böttger & Hanna Emelie Ernsting at Salone Satellite
Milan is awash with churches. Milan is awash with monasteries. Basilica. Friaries. And other suitable locations for submitting penitence. We