Having kicked off on 1 October, Brera Design Days is about to draw to a successful close after a packed calendar of events designed to offer visitors a new perspective on design and architecture trends, communication and creativity.
The event was been sponsored by the City of Milan and the Milan Order of Architects (in collaboration with Mediateca Santa Teresa and run by Studiolabo with main sponsors Lexus, FMG Fabbrica Marmi and Graniti).
The aim of the event was to add a second date to the diary – after the Design Week in April – where industry pros could introduce the city to the various themes currently at play within the furniture and design industry.
With over 20 locations taking part, Design Days included workshops on areas such as game design and how a product is actually manufactured, while topics such as prototyping, automation, supply and professional development were all discussed.
There were countless stand-out moments, not least the “Retail design, between space and experience” event hosted by Valcucine at their showroom in Corso Garibaldi 99, which explored how to transform a visit to a shop into a real experience, with food picked out as a fail-safe method of attraction.
Moroso, meanwhile, opened their Via Pontaccio showroom for an exhibition/party named “Every story has a thread”, which focused on the colour of the top-quality materials which had been attached to the walls like tapestries for the occasion. Dotted around the Moroso store – which had been redesigned especially for the event – were some of the brand’s most celebrated chairs, such as the Fijord armchair and Highland and Lowseat sofas by Patricia Urquiola, the Pipe armchair by Sebastian Herkner and Ron Arad’s Victoria&Albert sofa, with its curved, evocative shaping. To mark the occasion, the seats had been reupholstered with new colours ranging between intense, warm, vibrant and brilliant.
Fluorescent colours made an appearance in the seating collection created by Samer Alameen for Dilmos, another historic name in the Brera Design District.
The Molteni&C – Dada showroom, meanwhile, was the setting for a book presentation of “Selection of furniture 1955-1975”, while Yasuhiko Itoh’s Heritage collection was showcased in a window of the MHC.2 bookstore.
A talk on “The evolution of ceramics” was held in the Kartell by Laufen showroom in Via Pontaccio, with the discussion focusing on the extraordinary ceramic-based SaphirKeramik material, which was created by Laufen and given over to the design brilliance of Ludovica and Roberto Palomba, who appeared at the event to introduce their line of bathroom fittings.
Walk a little further down Via Pontaccio and you’re met by Golran’s Napelese rugs, with their bright oranges and reds, while on the other side of the street is Unopiù, where outdoor furniture in softer colours is set in a nature-inspired environment. Check out the Swing armchair – which invokes the shape of a leaf – and the shell-like Mamy seat, as well as the nest-inspired Tweed chair.
If you’re planning to visit Brera before the end of Design Days, you can’t afford to miss the Richard Ginori showroom in Piazza San Marco, the Agape12 store in Via Statuto – which has some magnificent natural stone basins among its bathroom furniture selection – and Carl Hansen&Son in Foro Buonaparte 18, where the “Timeless Design: Carl Hansen&Son and Venini tell their stories” exhibition is taking place. Running alongside Brera Design Days is the Milan Design Film Festival, which ends tomorrow.
