My 7 favorite things from Milan Design Week

FastCompany: I’m addicted to the curtain. That moment when you walk through a dark hall, push through two layers of dark drapes, and whatever you see next—no matter what it is—is a bit of a thrill. It’s one of my favorite motifs of Milan Design Week, when half a million people from around the globe for a citywide celebration of all things design. [Photo: Mark Wilson] The hook is Salone de Mobile, the world’s largest furniture trade show. Its 3/4-mile-long fairgrounds feature 1,900 exhibitors from 32 countries.

(The fairgrounds are so expansive they actually sit outside Milan in a city called Rho.) But many visitors never make it there, instead exploring Milan’s design districts that are full of open houses and sponsored installations for the week, where you might find yourself queuing up in a 400-year-old palazzo to see some grand sculpture that’s probably best described in pictures because all it really does is fill you with wonder. I’d love to tell you I experienced everything at Milan Design Week. That’s about impossible for one human. But gosh did I try. Here are some of my favorite things I saw.

[Photo: Barilla] Edible Reveries Who doesn’t love a good gimmick, especially when you can chew it? Edible Reveries is a small installation for the giant noodle brand Barilla. To promote their Artisia pasta—in which noodles are 3D-printed into formerly impossible, intricate shapes with semolina and water—the company teamed with Studio Yellowdot, which created a joyful lounge to eat a custom noodle that was also created by the design studio. It was one of a few food-focused installations in a year where the design world seemed to be stress eating.

The furniture pieces were 3D-printed, wooden noodle loungers (those weren’t edible), while the noodle they created was a finger food that popped in your mouth like a tiny dumpling. I was left wanting more, but there’s a catch: Barilla’s team told me that they can only print 36 pieces of pasta at a time on its single printer created for the job. So Artisia will remain in limited quantities for the foreseeable future, but you can still buy it online for prices around $18.

View this post on Instagram Salone Raritas Not to get too insider-y, but there’s definitely a politics inside Milan Design Week, a tension between Salone’s focus on mass produced trade show furniture and everything else around the city. Salone Raritas , in its first year, proved to be a promising modernization of Salone’s premise. The new exhibit featured one-off collectible pieces ranging from antique marble columns to rare, vintage furniture. Pieces started at a few thousands dollars, and reached into the nosebleed section of trust funds.

Raritas was quite simply the best part of Salone—and not just because it featured a new work by one of my favorite artists-designers, Sabine Marcelis, called Plume . With all the delight of a giant children’s toy, the large, pink acrylic sculpture features bubbles floating through oil. I could stare at this thing for hours. [Photo: Lexus] Lexus SPACE Vehicles were all over Milan this year, and by and large, they had a good showing. Hyundai enlisted visitors to make their own designs in bent metal, and launch paper airplanes. Kia showed off exciting new EV concepts that more or less speak for themselves.

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The article discusses key takeaways from a major design event that can influence brand strategies, making it relevant and impactful, though the concepts presented are not entirely new.