This article was originally published on April 15 and is continuously updated with news from Milan Design Week and photographs taken by Domus.
22/04/2026

Those who have been attending Design Week for the past few years know it well: the busiest week in Milan understands design much more broadly than one might think, transforming the discipline and opening it up to everyone, not just insiders.

So, in addition to what happens in the spaces of the fair, the city reshuffles and redefines its most beautiful places through great machines of wonder: spectacular installations that tell the future of design through ever-new keys. Until recently we would have called them simply the most Instagrammable, but that urgency seems to have slackened, giving way to the desire to live and remember an experience firsthand.

We're talking about courtyards enveloped in clouds of steam, plays of light, lush gardens that occupy buildings and showrooms for a week, memorable sound experiences, reinterpretations of the archives of great designers, banquets and out-of-place workshops that take design where you least expect it.

In the first days of this Design Week, we’ve picked out ten wow installations: the largest, the boldest, the ones worth adding to your agenda because they are set to be among the most visited—and, likely, the most loved.

Among the regular events is the one in the courtyard of Palazzo Litta, near Porta Magenta, where every year MoscaPartners sets up a large installation that serves as the heart of the exhibition hosted inside. This year the architect Lina Ghotmeh, whom Domus knows well, was called upon. Her design for the Fuorisalone is inspired by the history of the building and aspires to transform its architecture into a dynamic and spectacular event. "The installation is for all intents and purposes a playful labyrinth that activates this space without altering its structure, introducing a contemporary layer that offers visitors a silent pause within the intensity of Design Week", the designer told.

6, in the Porta Venezia district, has transformed the Piscina Romano, inaugurated in 1929 and designed by engineer-architect Luigi Lorenzo Secchi. The exhibition Over and over and over and over celebrates glass as a material, bringing together Murano tradition and contemporary design in an immersive experience.

A mural installation signed by Hannes Peer instead occupies the spaces of Officine Saffi Lab. The material chosen by the designer is ceramic that, choreographed by his hands, meets, overlaps and collides until it draws a spectacular texture on a huge surface.

Another unmissable destination lies in the heart of the city. The beautiful cloister of the Pinacoteca di Brera has, in recent years, become a regular stop for all Fuorisalone enthusiasts—and it is no different this year. The installation is by Sara Ricciardi, one of the most acclaimed designers of the moment, who presents Serotonin – The Chemistry of Happiness for American Express. Through the movement of large inflatable volumes, the project explores the universal link between beauty and happiness, translating the scientific concept of the “happiness hormone” into an immersive visual and sensory experience.

At the Institute of the Blind, Geely Auto presents Anima Mundi. A Visionary Impulse, an immersive installation signed by Dotdotdot, a multidisciplinary studio that always knows how to surprise. 

Also Glo is now one of the undisputed protagonists of Milan Design Week, and this year we find it in the setting of Palazzo Moscova, where Numero Cromatico sets up an installation dominated by a large interactive portal: an orange circle, a symbol of connection and belonging, to be explored through a synaesthetic interweaving of lights, smells and sounds.

Lovers of the great classics should mark this stop: Renaissance of the Real reinterprets the famous USM modular furniture system thanks to architecture firm Snøhetta, in an installation designed by Swiss artist Annabelle Schneider that invites visitors to rediscover the sensory dimension of the body in an age dominated by digital hyperconnectedness.

A material you probably haven't seen yet is instead the star of Esquisse, Sony's installation in the spaces of the University of Milan. Original Blended Material, an eco-friendly paper material developed by the company, features the warmth and tactility of familiar raw materials such as bamboo, sugar cane fibers and recycled paper, explored here through furniture and spatial elements.

An installation in the Tortona district offers something decidedly necessary: rest. On the terrace of BASE, Live Camp-ing sets up a space for experimentation dedicated to practices of radical conviviality. The project, curated by Lemonot in collaboration with the Royal College of Art in London and with the support of KINDOF, involves twenty London-based students invited to build and inhabit a temporary community for a week, reactivating urban camping on the terrace, reconfigured as a convivial landscape of tents, platforms, textile surfaces, and lighting devices.

Opening image: Photo Alberto Dibiase