Dezeen LIVE: Milan design week 2024

June 13, 2024

The Dezeen team are reporting live from in the northern Italian metropolis (15-19 April) with updates throughout the day, including exclusive previews of products, installations and events.


4:30pm After her sandwich outside (see the 2pm entry below) Dezeen design editor reports on highlights from the .

Inga Sempe
Inga Sempé has created a full-scale home interior

Besides the (more on that shortly from Dezeen editor-at-large Amy Frearson), French designer has created a full-scale home interior inside the museum.

Inga Sempe
The Imperfect Home showcases Sempé’s colourful functionality

Sempé focuses her research on everyday household objects and their industrial production.

The installation at Triennale is called which invites visitors to “experience spaces with everyday gestures, filled with timeless objects, far from the rules of marketing”.

Nartey table
Giles Nartey is exhibiting a communal table. Imagery by Jennifer Hahn

Elsewhere, British-Ghanaian designer is exhibiting a communal table made for making fufu – a West African food made by pounding cassava and plantain into a dough – as part of the class of 2024.

Julie Richoz
Julie Richoz’s walking stick is an ode to the small gesture of picking a flower on a hike and taking it home

Also not to be missed is Walking Sticks and Canes, a small but mighty display of made by 18 designers for their future selves.

Alban le Henrey
Alban Le Henry’s walking stick enables effortless height adjustment

Particular favourites include a height-adjustable model with a corkscrew mechanism by , a cane for off-road walking by and a hollow version by that was designed for picking flowers on hikes.

Michel Charlot
Michel Charlot’s cane enables you to pick it up without bending over thanks to it’s wide base

3:30pm In a break from the persistence of newness at , writes Dezeen editorial director , architecture historian and researcher Adam Stěch has displayed thousands of his own celebrating unique details from 20th century architecture and interiors.

“If you want to find the beauty, you have to spend the time searching for it”

“I want to look at old things and bring them to life again through these photographs,” Stěch told Fraser.”The show aims to inspire practitioners and designers, not academics.”

Adam Stech at dropcity
The exhibition features hundreds of architecture and interiors details

The exhibition, in tunnel 56 of (see the 9am entry below), is themed according to ten categories: lighting, seating, storage spaces, tables, railings, doors, handles, windows, floors and walls.

The images are collected from more than 45 countries in the world.

Adam Stech at dropcity
Images by Max Fraser

Stěch has been touring for years to collate what he hopes will become the biggest database of one-of-a-kind designs from specific buildings and interiors captured by a single person.

“If you want to find the beauty, you have to spend the time searching for it,” he said. “It’s a lifetime of work.”


2:30pm Dezeen deputy editor reports that furniture brand ‘s stand at , designed from recycled materials by Belgian studio , features plenty of design classics.

knoll at salone del mobile
Knoll have filled cubicles with plants at Salone del Mobile

Chairs by and were placed between glass cubicles filled with plants, creating a modernist greenhouse office aesthetic.

knoll at salone
The space features Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chairs
Frank Gehry's powerplay chair and footstool
Frank Gehry’s Power Play chair and footstool was used to furnish the space. Images by Cajsa Carlson

2:00pm Lunch! from the build-your-own sandwich shop outside , where the is on show.

ham sandwich
Image by Jennifer Hahn

1:30pm Pink light glows in the interior of Bar Unniko – Finnish lifestyle brand ‘s pop-up cafe, which has taken over ‘s Bar Stoppani for the week.

marimekko
Marimekko signature poppies appropriately adorn their pop-up

Dezeen’s reports that the traditional Milanese interior was left largely untouched with the exception of recognisable Marimekko poppies covering the umbrellas, awning, floor and petite .

marimekko
Poppy umbrellas provide shade outside the cafe

12:30pm Following the preview in yesterday’s live coverage (see 10:30am entry from ) you can now read Jennifer Hahn’s full write-up of her conversation with about the Rude Arts Club exhibition at the showroom.

“Sexual energy is a big part of being human,” Toogood said, as she talked Hahn through the thinking behind her new collections. Read the rest below › 


12:00pm Dezeen editor-at-large paid a visit to an experimental pop-up shop, the New Store, installed by Rotterdam’s Nieuwe Instituut in Milan’s Isola area.

fucci haircuts
Alberto Fucci is cutting hair for the New Store’s design projects

The store is offering free hair cuts, courtesy of local hairdresser Alberto Fucci, and using the harvested hair in different ways.

fucci haircuts
Human Material Loop is turning the cut hair into yarn

Textile producer Human Material Loop is turning the trimmings into yarns that can be used to make clothing, while textile artist Woo Jin Joo is creating a huge embroidered blanket with help from visitors.

fucci haircuts
Artist Woo Jin Joo is creating an embroidered blanket with the hair cuttings. Images by Amy Frearson

Unfortunately for Frearson, Fucci was booked up for the day so she didn’t manage to get a trim.


11:45am Italian kitchen brand Elica’s Straordinaria installation, designed by Japanese studio and curated by Marcello Smarrelli of the Fondazione Ermanno Casoli, is shimmering in the courtyard of Palazzo Litta, reports Dezeen social editor .

Elica installation
The waving, coloured poles aim to echo the movement of heat and air in clouds

The installation is one of many at this year’s Milan design week that focus on creating immersive, sensory experiences.

Straordinaria aims to mimic the lightness of clouds with colourful perspex poles that hang freely from the roof of the central pavilion, which visitors are invited to walk through and activate as they do so.


11:30am Dezeen’s has skipped from one fashion brand (see Days exhibition at JW Anderson, 10:45am below) to another and is now at Loewe Lamps in the Palazzo Citterio.

loewe lamps
Loewe lamps are on show at the Palazzo Citterio

Spanish fashion brand is showing at Milan design week for the eighth time with an exhibition of lamps created by 24 international artists.

The fashion brand partnered with artists to create the lamps, including this glass and clay creation by South African artists Andile Ayalvane

Birch twigs, horse hair, glass and leather are among the range of materials used to create the individual lamps, which illuminate a large room in the palazzo.


11:15am Johanna Seelemann, who was , is exhibiting a series of urban interventions designed to make cities better places to live for both humans and other species such as plants and animals.

johanna seelemann
Terracotta vases feature  in the exhibition

reports that among the products is cladding that doubles up as an insect hotel.

vases that are buried beside urban plants so they can gradually release water through their porous shells to conserve resources.

johanna seelemann
Johanna Seelemann has designed an insect hotel

Visitors are encouraged to take away small seed bombs made by mixing local clays with native plant species. Shaped like ‘s iconic Milanese Panettone bollards, the souvenirs hope to encourage visitors to have a hand in bringing nature back into the city.

Johanna Seelemann
Visitors are encouraged to take away small seed bombs

10:45am Dezeen design and interiors reporter has been to see Days, an exhibition by Patrick Carroll presented in the Milan store.

Carroll has stretched textiles that he has knitted onto stretcher bars as if they are paintings, using yarn salvaged from remainder shops that liquidate the fashion industry’s leftovers.

Days exhibition
The knitted artworks feature words and phrases like “Boys do fall in love”

Knitted into the works are bits of text, half the works bear a single word like: abnegation, pity and permanence.

Days exhibition
Phrases like “Daily Life” and some works with only single words feature in the exhibition. Images by Jane Englefield

10:30am Dezeen’s editorial director moderated a panel discussion at kitchen brand ‘s The Elevation of Gravity installation at Villa Necchi Campiglio this morning.

gaggenau panel talk
Dezeen’s Max Fraser moderated the panel discussion for Gaggenau

Fraser was joined by associate director Johannes Schafelner, interiors lead Francesca Portesine and founder Kim Colin to discuss how principles of reduction and essentialism in architecture and design can be employed to improve our lives.

gaggenau panel talk
A seamlessly integrated induction hob is cantilevered from a rock. Images Ben Hobson

The installation features an induction hob seamlessly integrated into a huge slab that juts dramatically from a piece of rock.


10:15am Commerce platform Artemest’s 2nd edition of L’Appartamento is taking place at Residenza Vignale on Via Enrico Toti.

artemest milan
The queue outside Artemest’s L’Apartamento. Image by Jennifer Hahn

There’s a very long line of people in the Milan sunshine waiting to get in but Dezeen social editor had an early doors appointment (watch this space for more on our later).

Artemest 'appartamento
The dining room was designed by VSHD Design

Inside six international interior design studios – Elicyon, , Rottet Studio, Studio Meshary, AINassar, Tamara Feldman and – have each curated a room, exclusively using furniture, lighting, décor and art from over 170 of Artemest’s artisans, brands and artists.

artemest l'apartamento
The bedroom was designed by Tamara Feldman. Images by Clara Fiinigan

Find out more about  on  


9am Good morning! Day three is beginning at and Dezeen’s has been to new Milanese architecture and design centre .

dropcity 3D printing
There are 15 adjacent tunnels at Dropcity, behind Milan’s Central Station

Dropcity occupies previously abandoned, connected tunnels behind Milan Central Station and is due to open permanently in the autumn of this year.

3D printing drop city
Dropcity is a space for research and experimentation into alternative forms of architecture and design

Founded by architect Andrea Caputo, Dropcity will be showcasing its construction process taking place within the tunnels throughout the week, with one tunnel being reconstructed with and structures.

The crocodile series from is made out of offcuts, walnut and ebonized with vinegar and steel mixture.

There are 15 variously numbered tunnels, and in tunnel 38 is an exhibition by Socii titled Socii Circus: Upholding cultural commons.

socii at dropcity
Furniture is displayed on a stage made from building waste

The space has been turned into part-workshop – with carpenters at work throughout the week– and part-display, with old and new creations showcased on a stage at the front of the tunnel, made from found materials and building waste.

socii at dropcity
The exhibition features a wooden daybed decorated with thousands of glossy beads. Imagery by Starr Charles

Recycled wood and other materials were used for all designs within the collection.

On of the pieces is a handcrafted wooden daybed decorated with 11,000 seeds created by design collective , who make furniture in and Tallinn.


Catch up on everything that happened on and at Milan design week.

To keep you up to date, has created a  highlighting the key events at the festival.

See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.

All times are London time.

The lead image is by Jane Englefield.

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