TOP 10 installations to see at milan design week 2024

Indoor and outdoor installations at milan design week 2024

Immersive indoor and outdoor installations and scenographies emerge at Milan Design Week 2024, and visitors may still have time to see and experience them in person. Many of these installations invite visitors to walk through them, become active participants in the experience, from Google’s sound installation, where they can be bathed with musical frequencies as the neon light changes, to design studio we+’s color-layered flowy, site-specific artwork in the courtyard of Palazzo Litta.

A hovering sun makes up the concept of the exhibition designed by Sabine Marcelis and CLOUD for Design Space AlUla, and 150 structural triangles in natural aluminum carpet the cavernous architecture of MAD Architects’ The Amazing Walk in the University of Milan, where the installation is suspended around a body of water. Lasvit’s outdoor fused glass installation, Bottega Veneta’s Le Corbusier homage, and Saint Laurent Rive Droite’s Gio Ponti-minded pavilion and exhibition. There’s still time to visit these, a supplement to designboom’s ultimate guide to Milan Design Week 2024.

SABINE MARCELIS’ HOVERING SUN LIGHTING IN DESIGN SPACE ALULA

image courtesy of Design Space AlUla

An exhibition designed by Sabine Marcelis and CLOUD awaits visitors to Saudi Arabia’s Design Space AlUla. A series of furniture objects and accessories, which include modular seating systems and biodegradable pots, glows under a monumental lighting, emitting its golden warmth around the yellow space. This cylindrical oculus embodies the role and position of the sun as it hovers above the exhibition.

Below the sun-like lighting, the modular seats invite visitors to feel their fabric. Around the space, the works vary, completing the indoor installation, with Dr Zahrah Alghamdi’s The Magical Pillars, a leather recreation of native rock pillars; TECHNOCrafts’ 3D printed Living Pots; and TAKK’s seating system crafted from clay and naturally dyed fabric to evoke the undulations of Saudi’s desert.

Read more about the installation here.

what: Design Space AlUla

when: 15 April from 2 p.m to 8 p.m / 16 – 21 April from 10 a.m to 8 p.m

where: Mediateca Santa Teresa, via della Moscova 28

HERMÈS’ JOCKEY SILK JERSEY ON THE FLOOR

image © Maxime Verret

Inside La Pelota on Via Palermo 10, Hermès brings raw materials such as brick, stone, slate, wood and compacted earth to depict a jockey’s silk jersey on the floor of the space. Forming an X, the wood-like surface becomes a platform for people to walk on as they observe the many materials the Maison works with, creating a playful contrast between materials and harmony through the methodical arrangement of the materials.

The jockey silk with colorful geometric motifs planted on the floor as an indoor installation harks back to the leather goods and textiles of Hermès. Along with these materials, the Hermès Collection Maison 2024 at Milan Design Week 2024 exhibits its new vibrant pieces of furniture, from lounge chairs and lamps to colorful baskets and cloud-like, fold-dyed cashmere. 

Read more about the installation here.

what: Hermès Collection Maison 2024

when: 16 – 21 April 2021

Tuesday 12:00 – 17:00

Wednesday 10:00 – 17:00

Thursday, Friday, Saturday 10:00 – 20:00

Sunday 10:00 – 18:00

where: La Pelota, via Palermo 10 

GOOGLE MAKES SENSE OF COLOR USING SOUND FREQUENCIES

image courtesy of Google | photo by Edoardo Delille & Giulia Piermartiri

Google’s Design Studio brings together the five senses in one exhibition, Making Sense of Color. The moment visitors enter Garage 21 in Via Archimede, 26, the dark room lights up with 21 open box rooms, each flanked with semi-transparent walls. They are invited to step inside one of the boxes, listen to the sound frequencies that arts and research lab Chromasonic composed, watch the neon lights change along with the beat, and feel the rhythm and vibrations run through their skin.

This immersive indoor sound installation for Milan Design Week 2024 is joined by the other senses in the next rooms. Here, every space is brightened up by the white walls, as if the darkness has finally faded into the background. What colors feel, look, smell and taste like encompass the remaining spaces of the exhibition, with Google elaborately and thoroughly interpreting hues with associations, in hopes that the visitors themselves can make sense of colors.

Read more about the installation and the interview with Google’s Ivy Ross here.

what: Making Sense of Color 

when: 15 – 21 April 2024

where: Garage 21, via Archimede 26

LASVIT’S OUTDOOR INSTALLATION MADE OF HOT MELTED GLASS

images courtesy of Lasvit

A monumental outdoor fused glass installation is the first to greet visitors to Lasvit’s design, architecture, and glassmaking exhibition for Milan Design Week 2024. In the courtyard of Palazzo Isimbardi, the installation ‘Re/Creation’ stems from the properties of the glass, the main material used in the project. Lasvit showcases the results of extremely hot melted glass being allowed to relax and spread before it takes on the shape or form of the surface or object it is going to lie down on.

The outdoor installation is joined by its sibling, designed by Lasvit’s Art Director Maxim Velcovsky who hopes to spotlight the relationship between glass and architecture. Entitled Porta, the monumental piece underlines Lasvit’s artisanal glass facades, showing visitors the various facets of fused glass. Crafted in Europe’s largest glass kiln, this installation peers through how the brand adapts to the size and variability of glass, all the while meeting the demands of architectural projects. 

what: Re/Creation 

when: 16 – 20 April 2024, 10:00 – 19:00 and 21 April 2024, 10:00 – 15:00 

where: Palazzo Isimbardi, Corso Monforte 35

BOTTEGA VENETA PAYS HOMAGE TO LE CORBUSIER

image courtesy of Bottega Veneta

For Milan Design Week 2024, Bottega Veneta honors Le Corbusier and his LC14 Tabouret Cabanon table design, originally conceived by the Swiss-French architect and designer for his personal cabin, or ‘cabanon,’ located in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin on the French Riviera. Matthieu Blazy and Bottega Veneta partnered with Cassina and Fondation Le Corbusier for the indoor installation, adding the architect and designer’s Cabanon stools, which dominate most of the exhibition space.

Inside Palazzo San Fedele, which is slated to become the new Bottega Veneta headquarters starting in September 2024, visitors can see stacks of Le Corbusier’s cabanon stools, crafted in Bottega Veneta’s signature leatherwork and designed in a special charred-wood technique that draws on traditional Japanese methods. These techniques help protect the natural color properties of the wood and highlight the wood grain’s unique patterns.Each piece is meticulously enveloped in Bottega Veneta’s Intreccio foulard technique, meticulously hand-woven at the House’s artisanal atelier in Montebello, near Vicenza.

Read more about the installation here.

what: On the Rocks

when: 16 – 20 April 2024

where: Palazzo San Fedele 

WE+’S ‘STRAORDINARIA’ MOVES ALONG WITH THE WIND

In the courtyard of Palazzo Litta at 5Vie District, Japanese design studio we+ plants their vibrant and color-layered, site-specific outdoor installation, Straordinaria. Just like its name suggests, marveling at the flimsy fabric swinging along with the winds, held together by the weight of circular plastic-like material underneath each strand, becomes the first reaction. Then, visitors can walk inside, with a short path arranged like a maze design to let them be within the outdoor installation and observe the materials up-close.

Studio we+ collaborated with Elica and Fondazione Ermanno Casoli for Straordinaria, with the curation of the foundation’s artistic director, Marcello Smarrelli. The dynamic and radiant monumental artwork draws from the lightness of clouds, hence the use of airy materials, and the flow of air and warmth. The outdoor installation hopes to put the themes of relation and contact forward, focusing on shapes, materials, hues and depth.

what: Straordinaria

when: 15 – 21 April 2024, 10:00 – 19:30

where: Palazzo Litta — Corso Magenta, 24, Milan, Italy

MAD ARCHITECTS’ CAVERNOUS ARCHITECTURE ABOVE WATER

image via @madarchitects

MAD Architects’ outdoor installation in the Cortile della Farmacia at the University of Milan floats around the body of water. A suspended path crosses the water, acting as the surface for people to walk, for them to reach the inside of the geometric cave made of 150 structural triangles in natural aluminum. These 100 percent recyclable materials are covered with a micro-perforated metalized membrane commonly used for architectural facades, and for Milan Design Week 2024, MAD Architects used them in two colors: silver-metallic and milk green.

As soon as the visitors walk inside the geometric cave, a selection of home products greets them including furnishings, lighting, smart home devices, and technological accessories. In this outdoor installation, the arcades of the Cortile della Farmacia of the University of Milan are reflected on a mirror of water, and aplay of angles and heights can help enhance MAD Architects’ cavernous piece, floating at the heart of the University’s courtyard.

Read more about the installation here.

what: The Amazing Walk

when: 15 – 28 April 2024

where: Cortile della Farmacia inside University of Milan (Via Festa del Perdono, 7)

THE PATTERN OF DREAMS THAT PORSCHE WEAVES

image © designboom

Porsche returns to Milan Design Week 2024 with a towering outdoor installation in the courtyard of Palazzo Clerici, interwoven by rope-like lines, reminiscent of the spider web climbers found in playgrounds. Named The Patterns of Dreams, Porsche and its initiative The Art of Dreams collaborate with the design collective Numen/For Use in constructing a network of lightweight systems of thin metal cells. The skin then of the netting and ropes is fluidly spread or stretched, taut but still bouncy enough to bend and flow with a person’s weight.

In fact, during the preview, the Dutch sibling duo Imre and Marne van Opstal and their ensemble choreographed a dance performance within and above the net. As they crawled languidly, higher and higher while often pausing to lay down on the net which cocooned them, the ropes followed their movement, adapting to their rhythm. ‘Lines of Flight’ is Porsche’s 5th iteration of the traveling art and design series The Art of Dreams.

what: The Pattern of Dreams

when: 16 – 21 April 2024

where: Palazzo Clerici, Via Clerici 5

SAINT LAURENT’S PAVILION OF GIO PONTI’S TABLEWARE

In the cloisters of San Simpliciano, Saint Laurent Rive Droite constructs a pavilion that pays homage to Gio Ponti’s historic modernist architecture in Caracas. The white columns are designed with colored and elongated triangles, harking back to Gio Ponti’s palettes, and as the pillars descend, they are stopped midway by transparent glasses that showcase the Italian architect and designer’s set of porcelain tableware.

These pieces are adorned with motifs emblematic of his architectural design, including a sun, a crescent moon, a polar star, and elaborate iterations of the letter ‘A’ that honors the villa’s residents. The outdoor installation is curated by creative director Anthony Vaccarello for Milan Design Week 2024, bringing over the custom tableware collection originally conceived by Gio Ponti in 1953 for the Venezuelan Villa Planchart, alongside a collection of archives.

Read more about the installation here.

what: Gio Ponti — Villa Planchart Exhibition 

when: 16 – 21 April 2024

where: Chiostri di San Simpliciano

PRINTING ROCK FORMATIONS FOR JR’S LA NASCITA

image © designboom

Just in time for Milan Design Week 2024, coinciding with the city event rather than participating in it, JR’s new monumental rock installation ‘La Nascita’ springs forth in front of Milan Central Station, a sort of starting point for those who will walk around the city for the design week. The series of printed images of rock formations plastered onto aluminum slats is JR’s first sculptural anamorphosis, considered as a deviation from his usual medium.

In La Nascita, the outdoor installation is divided into two parts: the aluminum panels hung on scaffolding near the station’s facade, and the smaller scaffolding structures on the ground of Piazza Duca d’Aosta. Overall, these two form the spatial anamorphosis of his monumental rock installation. The printing technique used on aluminum means that the rock installation can withstand different weather conditions and be turned into a permanent piece.

Read more about JR’s installation and interview with designboom here.

what: La Nascita

when: 10 April – 1 May 2024

where: Stazione di Milano Centrale – Piazza Duca d’Aosta