In Milan, the Atmosphere of a Changing Design World

“You do all this work, only to try to make the work disappear,” explained designer Michael Anastassiades, “and then it sort of does. And then you wonder, where did all the money go?” The London-based maestro was standing in his booth at Euroluce—the lighting sub-fair that appears every other year at Milan’s Salone del Mobile—showing off Peaks, a collection of ceiling pendants making their debut at the April mega-show. The conical fixtures, hung upward and downward at staggered heights, are classic Anastassiades—playful yet minimal and exquisitely delicate-looking. The slightest breath, it seemed, could blow them all to pieces.

A lot of things at this year’s Salone seemed, more so than usual, a little fragile. The 61st annual installment of the world’s largest design trade exposition marked its return to its traditional early-spring time slot, following three consecutive years of COVID-induced cancellations and rescheduling. One could not help but sense that a great deal was riding on the outcome: On opening day last week—even as controversial Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni appeared at the fairgrounds to inaugurate the show—Salone president Maria Porro took time out to remind visitors to “rediscover how important meeting in person is.”

“Salone is about making connections,” Porro said. “To know quality, to understand proportions, you have to have a real relationship with the object.” With a middling attendance of 260,000 at the May edition last year, and exhibitors for the present show down 17% since the pandemic, Porro and her compatriots were counting on 2023 to bring back the new, old normal.

To some extent, organizers have reason to be pleased with the results. Even with the smaller number of booths at the main fair, Milan once again felt like the place to be. The scene for the Fuorisalone parallel events in the city proper was nothing if not lively: At Alcova—the young-designer platform making its second appearance—crowds jammed into a decommissioned slaughterhouse to see experimental projects like Aurélien Veyrat’s hand-crafted brickwork and wire-made outdoor furniture from Mira Bergh and Josfin Zachrisson. Across town, in the Lancetti neighborhood, similar lines formed to see the bold new lighting collection from NM3/6:AM at the debut Convey showcase, as well as around the corner at Milan mainstay Nilufar Depot, which boasted an atrium filed with towering iridescent sculptures by Objects of Common Interest. For first-time exhibitor Andrea Claire, who showed her Pisces chandelier at the Spazio Rosanna Orlandi gallery, the whole mood, mode, and setting of the week seemed positive. “There’s so much going on here,” she said. “It all kind of came together.”

But the skies over Milan were not cloudless, and by the time it actually did rain on Thursday, there had already been a few low rumbles on the horizon. The lower vendor headcount at the sprawling Salone complex had a palpable effect: Abundant space allowed some brands to spread out, notably Italian furniture maker Minotti, which combined four stalls into a persuasive replica of a small, indoor mall. Other major brands were conspicuously absent—longtime standbys like Vitra and Emeco took a pass, as did Moroso, though the latter kept busy at its downtown showroom with new work from Patricia Urquiola and others. The slimmer pickings at the fair facility weren’t all bad news; a lack of vendors stationed on the second floor spared visitors a trip up the stairs, and the first two halls were freed of the gilded decorative dreck (much of it aimed at the now-scarce Eastern European market) that usually causes clutter. Nonetheless, the reshuffling of the deck only added to the sense that something was out of joint.

Call it an interpretive stretch, but a similar vibration ran through much of the wares on offer around town. In the Centrale neighborhood, Zürich-based furniture designer Grace Prince debuted her show “Displaced Line” at the Oxilia Gallery: mysterious pieces of uncertain purpose and identity included a bench with a seatback sutured to one side and a screen interrupted by fragment of a shelf. (“It’s the strain that interests me,” Prince said, “the suspension that acts as a point of arrival.”) At DimoreStudio’s outpost in the neighborhood, the exhibition Silence featured a series of richly appointed rooms, each packed with vintage and contemporary furniture—the brand’s own armchairs and lamps; tables and chairs by Gabriella Crespi and Charlotte Perriand—to create mysterious, cinematic environments that one peeped at, voyeur-like, through holes in the surrounding walls.

Even at its commercial-cheeriest, there was something pervasively off in the fair’s atmospherics. The Knoll booth at the Rho compound was a Breuer-esque fantasy, but save for outdoor pieces from Piero Lissoni, there was almost no new work in it, and visitors wandered around occasionally bumping into the pavilion’s glazed partitions. Konstantin Gric’s Black Flag wall lamp for Flos managed to turn the whole premise of architectural lighting on its head, creating solidity and darkness instead of weightless illumination. At Campeggi, a woman attempted a moment of levity, demonstrating Emanuele’s Magni’s new Mini Clio folding lounger by performing an acrobatic tumble onto the thick, puffy cushion. No one really stopped to watch.

The good news—for Salone, certainly, but also for design in general—is that so much of the work on display was remarkably good on its own merits. From architect Sam Chermayeff’s maniacal, recliner-equipped car hoods at the Drop City exhibition to design team (ab)Normal’s spooky sleeping pavilion at courtyard of the ME Milan Hotel to the enchantingly cracked-up new interior of fashion boutique BOYY, there was more energy and verve than there’s been in a while. Whether that translates into enough economic energy to keep the fair moving forward is a different matter, and as creatives and brands continue to find their bearings in an altered global marketplace, Salone is still on uneven ground. For now, at least, Milan is back at the center of the design world. But the world is changing.

The views and conclusions from this author are not necessarily those of ARCHITECT magazine or of The American Institute of Architects.

To read more ongoing coverage of Salone 2023: 10 dazzling fixtures and collections at Euroluce 2023.