Milan Design Week 2019 Round-Up
Last month we were out and about at the world's most important design festival in Milan. All the top design brands introduce their new collections and host special events across the city. The main hub is the vast Salone del Mobile furniture fair at Rho but there are also a number of design districts all over the city hosting exhibitions, showrooms and parties.
Here are a few of the things which caught our eye …
Artist - Matthew Day Jackson
Kolho by Matthew Day Jackson for Made by Choice © Perttu Saksa
Renowned artist Matthew Day Jackson presented a highly distinctive collection of furniture, in collaboration with Finnish contemporary design company Made by Choice and the original inventors of high-pressure laminate, Formica Group.
The collection, titled Kolho, after the Finnish town that first inspired Jackson, comprised a series of dining tables and chairs juxtaposed with a series of the artist’s well-known, exquisite flower paintings. For the table and chairs, Jackson designed his own Formica® surface that reimagines, to scale, the surface of the moon. He also created the paintings using lead, scorched wood and Formica® laminate, evoking Jan Breughel the Elder and Younger’s genre-defining floral works from the 16th and 17th centuries, made during a time of Dutch prosperity, colonial expansion and exploitation. Presented with the artist’s Milan gallery, Hauser & Wirth, the paintings provide a backdrop and foundation for visitors to engage with the deeper meanings of the Kolho collection.
Installation - Lambert & Fils x DWA Design Studio present Caffè Populaire
Caffè Populaire by Lambert & Fils x DWA Design Studio
Lambert & Fils and DWA Design Studio present “Caffè Populaire”, a six day concept restaurant inspired by the shared ideal ‘Design cannot exist without dialogue’ . Hosted at new Milan hub Alcova, Caffè Populaire brought people and objects into dynamic encounters with one another through the essentiality of food. Milan’s renowned DWA studio offers a series of layered scenographies designed to incite curiosity and reinvigoration within viewers. New contemporary lighting collections from celebrated Montreal design studio Lambert & Fils filled the sprawling rooms of the defunct panettone factory, creating a conversation of opposites raw and refined, past and present. Rest and reprieve could be found at one of Caffè Populaire’s tables in which materials summon presentness through tactility.
Tech - Foster + Partners x LG
Signature OLED TV R by Foster + Partners x LG
Over in Tortona, Foster + Partners revealed it’s collaboration with LG on the Signature OLED TV R, the world's first television that rolls out of sight.
British architecture practice Foster + Partners worked on the project through its industrial design arm, and is responsible for the TV's external geometry and finishes. It also worked together with LG to design some of the internal mechanisms.
Designer - David Derksen Design
Sine Light by David Derksen
One of the highlights from Salone Satellite was Dutch designer David Derksen. He presented several new lighting concepts that played with the perception of materiality and light. The Sine Lights and Neolith Lights were shown alongside a new shelving system, bold looking trays and a Grid Space Divider.
Product - Wireline by Studio Formafantasma for Flos
Wireline by Studio Formafantasma for Flos
Statement lighting was big news at this years Salone and one of the best examples on show was Formafantasma's WireLine for Flos. It’s composed of an LED light source within a ribbed glass extrusion and supported by swooping lengths of flat pink rubber cable designed to look like belts. It was showcased on the massive all-white, 4,000-square-metre stand designed by Calvi Brambilla which housed Flos alongside B&B Italia and fellow lighting brand Louis Poulsen.
Gallery - House Of Job.
House Of Job.
Studio Job, the boundary-pushing art and design studio opened a fabulous new private gallery space in the heart of Porta Venezia. It showcased new sculptural work and classic pieces from the last 20 years of Studio Job. The space is a living gallery and studio and we were lucky to be one of the first visitors to sample the wonderful hospitality of Job and his partner Rebecca.
Banner Image | Kolho by Matthew Day Jackson for Made by Choice © Perttu Saksa