Dare to dream: Milan Design Week exhibits raise the creative bar

Milan Design Week, with the impressive Salone del Mobile at its centre, has always been an early warning system for new workplace design trends in terms of colour, form and materials.

This year’s edition, held from 16-21 April 2024, took a richer and more experimental approach to art, craft and design. Designers from all over the world explored new directions and perspectives, exhibiting all over the city as part of the Fuorisalone (to give Milan Design Week its official name) and giving the hordes of design critics and commentators plenty to write about.

Image: ‘Thinking Room’ by film director David Lynch

Dezeen described the Milan event as ‘a return to form’ and singled out six architect-designed furniture pieces by Foster+Partners, Heatherwick Studio, Zaha Hadid Architects and others as particularly worth of attention.

Wallpaper looked at collaborations between fashion brands and furniture design, and was impressed with Gucci’s Design Ancora collection, which reworked classic Italian design icons in rich red.

Fast Company focused on ‘12 clever designs for the painfully tiny apartments of the future’ – a collaboration between Muji and the University of Art and Design in Lausanne – and on film director David Lynch’s specially commissioned ‘Thinking Room’ at the heart of the fiera, an immersive installation.   

Image: In-Side by Heatherwick Studio for Magis

‘Milan holds lessons for workplace designers seeking new experiences and sensations …’

As workplace designers seek new experiences and sensations to bring people back to the office, Milan Design Week once again demonstrated the power of imagination.