The build-up to Salone del Mobile 2025 is well and truly underway, and it’s being marked in the global design capital by way of the city’s distinctive, historic trams. They’ve been ‘dressed’ in the Salone communication campaign livery, as well as 500 buses and 3,379 train and metro stations from Genoa to Rome.
“The biggest challenge and the crux of the campaign were to illustrate the interaction between material and body with a delicate touch,” says Bill Durgin. “An emotional journey in which design and body meld, becoming as one: a design vision aimed at improving the quality of our lives.”
As the Habitus and Indesign team jets off to Europe to bring you daily coverage on the ground in Italy, here is a sample of highly anticipated products, installations, events and more!
In celebration of its tenth anniversary, Artemest presents the third edition of L’Appartamento. The exhibition celebrates the timeless allure of Italian craftsmanship and design through the lens of globally renowned design talents in an exclusive venue: Palazzo Donizetti, a 19th-century architectural masterpiece located in Via Gaetano Donizetti 48.
Six internationally acclaimed interior design studios – 1508 London, Champalimaud Design, Meyer Davis, Nebras Aljoaib, Romanek Design Studio and Simone Haag – will each transform a distinct room of the Palazzo, showcasing an extraordinary selection of furniture, lighting, home décor and art from Artemest’s finest artisans, brands and artists.
‘armonie invisibili’ is an immersive journey exploring those subtle forces that link the visible and the invisible, form and meaning, object and intuition. While beauty is often reduced to aesthetics or consumption, this exhibition explores design as a language of resonance, an echo of hidden balances that shape the way we inhabit the world. Each work on display is more than an object: it is a knot in a web of secret connections, a living architecture of relationships that transcend the tangible.
In addition to the historic spaces of Palazzo Correnti in via Cesare Correnti 14 and SIAM in via Santa Marta 18, a special exhibition will be set up in the prestigious Cavallerizze in via Olona 4 at the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci.
Moleskine: Unleash Your Genius
Unleash Your Genius is an immersive installation celebrating the essential link between creativity, handwriting and innovation. Renowned for its iconic notebooks, the brand presents an experiential installation project at BASE (via Bergognone 34 in Milan), inviting visitors on a captivating journey to discover and unleash the genius that lies within each of us. Tony Pignatelli’s macro-origami sculpture – a representation of the human brain crafted from Moleskine paper – is set to take centre stage.
LAYER, the internationally acclaimed design studio led by Benjamin Hubert, will launch an immersive exhibition titled ‘101010’. This landmark exhibition celebrates LAYER’s ten-year anniversary with a curated retrospective of the studio’s decade-long work, alongside the new, and thought-provoking 101010 collection. The new collection comprises six innovative social design prototypes created in collaboration with leading design and fashion brands that LAYER has partnered with over the past decade. The transformative showcase blends art, technology, fashion, craftsmanship and sustainable innovation, exploring how design can shape tomorrow’s world.
The exhibition will be held at the iconic Milanese creative hub 10 Corso Como, in the new Project Room gallery, from 7th to 13th April.
Architecture and design firm Rockwell Group, in collaboration with the sustainability-focused non-profit Cork Collective, is partnering with the world’s largest cork processor, Corticeira Amorim, to create Casa Cork. It’s an immersive installation, events programme and student competition that aims to be a living laboratory of sustainable design in Milan this year. The dramatic centrepiece of Casa Cork is a lifelike replica of a monumental cork tree made from reclaimed virgin cork bark, while the wider event will include a talk series and an installation designed for experience the future of sustainable design.
The 9th edition of Isola Design Festival, organised by the digital and physical design platform Isola, returns to Milan this year. Based on the theme of ‘Design is Human’ and bringing together international designers, studios, creators and manufacturers, Isola Design Festival champions a humanity-driven approach to design. The event will explore themes inlcuding social impact, environmental responsibility, functional design, locally sourced materials and the fusion of digital and artisanal crafts. BasicVillage (Via dell’Aprica 12, Milan) will be the centre of the action.
Now in its third edition, Labò explores the role of design as a driving force of transformation and research, intertwining method and intuition, rigour and experimentation. The theme of the 2025 edition is ‘Crafting tomorrow, Rising ideas’ and will celebrate design’s ability to generate unexpected connections, offer new perspectives and open up creative exploration. The venue at via Biella 6 will host a fresh selection of international designers, artists and companies, curated by The Design Blender, the duo composed of Elsa Lemarignier and François Leblanc di Cicilia.
At 43 via Manzoni, Manzoni Hub will be a site dedicated to interiors and packed with ‘Made in Italy’ furniture, surfaces and accessories. A range of brands – including Altreforme, Bross, Bang & Olufsen, EPÒNIMO, Essenze Design, Euroluce Light of Italy and WallPepper®/Group – will occupy the new space, coordinated by Alfa Project and its founders Alberto Parma, Andrea Crespi Reghizzi and Francesca Aletti, whose goal is to enhance not only the know-how and products of the partners but also to support professionals and private clients for turnkey projects.
The site-specific installation Source of Pleasure by Brazilian architect and designer Juliana Lima Vasconcellos a multi-sensory journey designed to trigger all the senses as it explores the universe of coffee. Installed at and framed against the courtyard of the Palazzo del Senato, home of the Milan State Archives in the heart of Porta Venezia Design District, Source of Pleasure taps into the heritage and expertise of Lavazza as its celebrates its 130th anniversary.
The 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition – Inequalities – will be open to the public from 13th May to 9th November. After tackling the themes of sustainability in 2019 with Broken Nature, and the mysteries of the universe, from cosmic space to the invisible scale of viruses in 2022 with Unknown Unknowns, this iteration will close the trilogy by focusing on the human dimension and addressing an urgent and political issue such as the growing inequalities that characterise cities and the contemporary world. Among the participating curators are Norman Foster, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
This is the web series devoted to architects’ very own homes, with new episodes in 2025. The second season will open the doors some important designers’ home, including: Arianna Lelli Mami, interior designer and founder with Chiara Di Pinto of Studiopepe; the architect and designer Hannes Peer; architect and interior designer Giuseppina Motta; Alessia Bossi, creative director and co-founder of the We Are Lovers agency; Alberto Nespoli, interior designer and co-founder of Eligo Studio; Marialaura Rossiello Irvine, architect and designer, creative director of Studio Irvine; and Marco Lavit, architect and designer.
The web series is available on YouTube and on the social channels of the Salone del Mobile.Milano.
Of course, we couldn’t go without mentioning our very own event! Centring on a panel discussion and set within iGuzzini’s charming showroom in the historic Brera quarter of Milan, the event will be a focal point for the Antipodean design community in particular to gather and take stock of things halfway through the week.
Shaping Spaces from Home to Hospitality: A Lighting Dialogue in Milan is set to take place from 10am on Wednesday 9th April at iGuzzini, Via Brera 5. RSVP here!
