Milan Design Week 2008 - part one
The Milan Design Week 2008 was offering kind of sweet-sour experiences. I started to go to Milan already back in 1988 but I think I’m as curious (and critical) as I was twenty years ago. I do understand that it is maybe an utopia to expect the Milan Design Week to be better and better year after year. However, at least it should reflect current trends from the surrounding world. I’m not sure it really did that this year. But I’m not surprised, the furniture industry is normally comparatively slow. A few years ago you didn’t go to the Milan Design Week if your prime objective was to spot the latest lifestyle trends. But the event is slowly changing from being “just” a furniture fair to a wider design event with representatives from different areas like cars, jewellery and fashion.
Nowadays, at this kind of design happenings, I’m looking more at the overall appearance than on specific products itself. Kind of the total brand delivery. One conclusion was that you could really feel that we are going towards a recession. Anxious businessmen were doing their best to sell as much as possible. Of course this was affecting the total quality of the Milan Design Week. There were definitely a lack of originality and creativity this year.
But I also saw a couple of really interesting exhibitions. One was Established & Sons at Pelota, a former sports arena in Milano’s Brera area. Good show and nice to see how they are experimenting with basic materials and shapes. With a kind of idea-based simplicity as a common denominator. Another positive experience was the Japanese producer E&Y which had a qualitative exhibition with a beautiful natural light.
In the first room of Moroso’s “The little garden of love”, water was pouring down from the ceiling. A show for all your senses. I have added some pictures from the mentioned exhibitions bellow. Stay tuned, further report from the Milan Design Week tomorrow!
First eight images is from the Established & Sons exhibition.
Next two images from the E & Y exhibition, with founder Yoichi Nakamuta.
And finally the Moroso exhibition called “The little garden of love”
Andra bloggar om: möbler, inredning, mässa, design, milano, italien
Saturday 19 April 2008, 02:05
The multicolored shelf system is such a terrible, shameless ripoff. The idea was the main attraction last year the the Satellite fair and they dare to present it just a year after.
Saturday 19 April 2008, 03:16
Still, I liked it (the multicolored shelf system).
I’ve been seeing some cool things but I did notice Milan didn’t seem as exciting as years past. I’ve noticed effects of the economy on all shows in a variety of ways this year so far, some stepping their game up (who are ordinarily not so innovative) and some making sure they are hitting the luxury markets. Milan has had so much promise how could they every year keep topping themselves? I’ve wondered. Still…there has been some neat stuff.
Saturday 19 April 2008, 08:32
Is the blue the color of love? A little cold…I have been waiting to see this Garden of love - with so much preliminary announcements from Moroso - and nothing interesting until now.
Saturday 19 April 2008, 09:38
Jonas, please send a picture of the original piece you are mentioning, unfortunately I don’t remember it from last years Satellite…
Kim, as you are saying, there were some neat stuff as well. I will post more images in the next couple of days.
Trendoffice, the title probably refereed mostly to the inner room of the show. But according to me it was sort of boring…
Sunday 20 April 2008, 11:51
[...] Here’s some further pictures from this years Milan Design Week. [...]
Sunday 20 April 2008, 22:39
It’s by Tadao Hoshino, it appears that it’s going to be manufactured by Ligne Roset now.
Picture can be found here:
yapi.com.tr/V_Images/haberler/haber_dosy...
Monday 21 April 2008, 16:01
Thanks Jonas, same same but a bit different, though the same typology. The Front cabinet here is also playing with the drawers: frontdesign.se/newsupdate_DIVIDED.htm
Tuesday 22 April 2008, 19:12
[...] follows some further images from the Milan Design Week 2008. This time from some of the exhibitions around the Zona Tortona. The biggest impression was that [...]