Milano Design Week, 5 things to see today / 3

At the center of the minimal, elegant and effective set-up that Calvi Brambilla designed for Flos is the product: new products (lots of them), range expansions, reissues and limited editions. In the 6,000 square meters of the Orobia Factory, right behind the Prada Foundation, however, there is also much more to celebrate the company's 60th anniversary as it looks to the future. Along with the new lamps – by Patricia Urquiola, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Marcel Wanders, Barber & Osgerby, Vincent Van Duysen, and Guglielmo Poletti - visitors can try the “food experience” offered by the pop-up restaurant of chef collective We are Ona (reservations required). Then each day features a talk with designers (June 7-10), as well as a series of workshops on sustainable lighting aimed at university students (by the Fosbury Architecture collective) and children (by Kikolle). Special mention for the Arco K, a limited edition of Castiglioni’s Arco – which is also 60 years old – made for the occasion with a crystal base in 2022 numbered pieces. Sound design by DJ Davide Dileo aka Boosta, keyboardist as well as founder of Subsonica.
E.S.

“My company turns 100 years old this year. More than history, I am interested in the ability to always bring new ideas to contribute to the evolution of the domestic scene.” This is the spirit of Alberto Alessi, who then decided to crown the celebrations that began a year ago with the release of one unreleased object a month with a large interactive exhibition in Galleria Manzoni. Twelve rooms curated by AMDL Circle, a sort of cabinet de curiosité to look at and sometimes even interact with, tell the story of the first 100 years by stigmatizing them in as many values in a different way each time: reconstructing a room of the company, showing prototypes or pieces that never went into production, but also with a golden room to celebrate the Merdolino. The future, the 001 of the title, is an all-green room designed by Studio Temp to house giant versions of the new cutlery designed by Virgil Abloh: the choice of green is used to activate green-screen technology via an Instagram filter and to create images in which the digital and physical worlds merge. Nostalgics can still take refuge in the theater's foyer, where there is a selection of archival pieces from the period between the 1920s and 1960s that consecrated Alessi.
L.M.

Marsèll Paradise is one of the coolest and boldest spaces in Milan, where the shoe maker’s product meets inspiration through exhibitions, music, and a very select collection of books and magazines. For this design week, Matylda Krzykowski turns it upside down with a site-specific project, the first to occupy its entire surface, a sophisticatedly ironic operation almost bordering on trolling. The ground floor is now all blue, with a trompe l’oeil bookcase taking the place of the real one, two-dimensional cartoonish figures, a pigeon, furniture that comes straight from Krzykowski’s house, stacks of pizza boxes (blue, of course), and in the middle of the room Mirka Laura Severa’s video starring local residents. Downstairs, in the space usually set aside for exhibitions, the furniture and objects of Lisa Ertel and Jannis Zell, an undercurrent of furniture with plugs, drawings made with a vibrator, and a pointed pole welcoming visitors. It conceptually acts as a connector under Philipp Schueller’s aquatic installation. The soundscape is by Collo Awata & Delfiné. One of the most comprehensive, complex and intellectually challenging installations of this Fuorisalone. Must-see.
A.S.

At the Triennale, two installations call attention to the condition of the planet. Forest Tales, designed by England’s Studio Swine for the American Hardwood Export Council, answers the question that should be on everyone’s lips: how to make a zero-waste temporary installation? Easy, just use the same wooden crates in which the furniture is packed: 22, to be precise, made of maple, cherry and red oak, underutilized American hardwoods. With The Inventory of Life, curated by Maria Cristina Didero, Mathieu Lehanneur instead transforms UN and WHO statistics into emotions. His anodized aluminum sculptures summarize the demographics of 130 countries, while suicide rates are entrusted to a series of black circles. Round ceramic sculptures show the gradations of the seas and a glass filament the change in their level. To each his or her own reflections. For the French designer, the message is positive: “We are not alone and we are alive.” 
E.S.

As famous for crystallized Pokemon cards as for gigantic works-as many were able to see last year at the Koenig Gallery in Berlin-it is with an outsized work, especially when compared to the timidity of the others in this edition, even the larger ones, that Daniel Arsham presents himself at this Fuorisalone. He does so in collaboration with Kohler, the American brand for which he has created a very limited collection of 99 3D-printed sinks, called Rock.01. And it is precisely the sinks that the immersive experience of Divided Layers is inspired by. The idea is for visitors to move through their shape, layer by layer, as a metaphor for the additive construction process of 3D printing. Inside, a pond reflects the cavernous surface and obviously recalls the liquid element that the sink contains. “Visitors experience what it's like to be inside the sink, rather than using it as a functional object," Arsham explains in recounting the meaning of his work.