Sometimes we joke that it’s the “Superbowl of furniture design” or “South by Southwest for chairs,” but more people attend Milan’s annual design week, anchored by the venerable trade show Salone del Mobile, than attend either of those events. Last year, “Salone” alone drew 307,000 visitors, increasing the population of the city of 1.3 million inhabitants by nearly 25 percent. For one week, Milan becomes the best place to discover the trends and ideas in furniture design from all over the world that will be coming to your living room soon.
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I’m not a step counter. But at Salone del Mobile in Milan, the world’s biggest furniture fair, keeping track of them seemed like a good way to show just how much ground there is to cover. The property is 100 acres, making it one of the largest exhibition centers in the world (and just a really big development), and there are around 20 buildings filled front to back with vendors. You could spend an entire day just turning faucets, if you wanted to.
But photographer Olga Mai and I were determined to see more than that. So we charted a course that, by day’s end, put us at 15,000 steps, or about seven miles, with zero coffee or bathroom breaks, but only because we forgot to take any. Really nice sofas occasionally let us rest our feet. A sauna briefly sealed us off from the cacophonous, echoing halls. Step by step, here’s a first-hand look at everything from Vipp’s new modular kitchen system, to film director David Lynch’s head scratcher of an exhibit, and the best sofas, faucets, and lamps that we saw in between.
Vipp
Vipp, the Danish brand founded in 1939 by Holger Nielsen, has come a long way from the trash bin he founded the brand with. But the Danish company’s new modular kitchen system, a three-piece collection called V3, brings things back to that first design item, explains Sofie Egelund, co-owner of the company and Nielsen’s granddaughter. Interiors today have a lot of wood, she says, so they wanted to try something new with an all-metal look, similar to the bin that made their name. As modular systems, V3’s three pieces—an island module, a tall module, and a wall module—can be ordered in different set lengths.
Nanimarquina
Olga and I made a stop at Nanimarquina, who creates handmade rugs, to see what was new from the Barcelona brand. On display were four collections, one by Nani Marquina herself, and three in collaboration with artists and designers.
Inside a black box was a series of vignettes in the walls: a warping digital clock display; half of a cow carcass hanging in an abattoir—you get the idea. On our way into the box, Lynch describes in a smartphone video—a crappy one—what this is all about. “The great beyond,” is one phrase he uses, explaining how the exhibit is meant to inspire self reflection in the scheme of the universe. But the fair isn’t really about looking inward, is it.
