Will Milan’s maximalist interiors make it into the workplace?
Milan Design Week got back in the swing this spring with more than 300,000 visitors revelling in a bolder and more extravagant direction in furniture and interiors
If Milan Design Week is a barometer for where the office interiors market might be heading, then we can look forward to a fertile artistic period of experiment as offices compete for the attention of employees in the hybrid working era.
The latest edition of the Fuorisalone (to give Milan Design Week its official name) twinned with the world-famous Salone Del Mobile on 17-24 April 2023 presented enough new styles and directions in furniture and interiors to give the hordes of design critics descending on the city plenty to pick over.
Dezeen picked out furniture made from industrial waste materials and maximalist interiors with dynamic stripes and abstract patterns as two of its trends to watch.
Wallpaper focused on Ikea’s 80th anniversary collection entitled Nytillverkad, a bold, bright and sustainable ‘treasure trove of great designs’.
DesignWeek explored Milan Design Week’s unusual array of weird and wonderful venues, including an old abattoir in the Porta Vittoria district where extravagant ideas could be played out at large scale.
‘A riot of colour after the quiet minimalism of the immediate post-pandemic era…’
After the quiet minimalism of the immediate post-pandemic era, Milan suggests that office interiors could be about to break out in a riot of colour, brave new forms and innovative materials. Will that bring employees back to the workplace? At least they’d have something to look at.
Image: Courtesy of IKEA
Image: poster for Salone del Mobile
Image: Inside the Fiera Milano exhibition centre
Image: Furniture made from surplus sheep’s wool and natural latex by Formafantasma
