The Beauty and the Goodness

The Greek canon of perfection

traced everything back to the coexistence

of two parameters:

beauty and goodness of spirit

In the modern era, where the artifact environment becomes an integral part of even the

emotional lives of people,

furnishings must in turn be

as beautiful as they are well made:

characteristics well understood by the faber fathers

of contemporary designers,

the artisans who laid the foundations of a great Italian tradition.

This fundamental creed forms the basis of the 61st edition of the Salone del Mobile.Milano (Milan Furniture Fair), which makes its post-pandemic return from April 18-23 at Fiera Milano, Rho. This return is itself exceptional, not only for the quality of the offering and the participants (more than 1,900 businesses, of which over 550 young companies) but also for the acceleration we will witness in the transformation and evolution of the event. “One of the characteristics of the Salone del Mobile is its ability to evolve to meet the most urgent challenges of the contemporary world,” says Maria Porro, president of the event. We did it in 2021 by inventing Supersalone, the first global event after the very difficult months of the pandemic, with the edition last June, when we returned to the traditional format, embracing the challenge of sustainability, and we continue to do so with the 2023 edition. After three years, it was unthinkable to return to April, our traditional position in the calendar, as if nothing had happened. We have worked to give shape to the suggestions and visions that have emerged over the past few years, starting with fundamental questions: what will be the new role for an event like the Salone? How and where to start planning its evolution?”. 

Therefore, the Salone will be set up on only one level. And, after a four-year absence, we are once again celebrating light with Euroluce, which has chosen as its theme the claim: “The City of Lights.” The interdisciplinary cultural content of the exhibition, designed by Beppe Finessi, will feature power of the imagination and concreteness of vision. The layout designed by Formafantasma, includes the central Aurore, a large arena devoted to dialog and debate, with twelve, interspersed ‘Constellations’ (pavilions) that will host exhibitions within the exhibition, organized by Finessi, throughout the venue.

Anticipated exhibitions include a solo by Hélène Binet, among the biggest names in contemporary photography (curated by Massimo Curzi) but also an exhibition curated by Di Martina, a tribute to the classic incandescent light bulb. Among many others, Maurizio Nannucci, one of the most powerful interpreters of artificial light in contemporary art, will create a large site-specific installation, a long neon sign with the words: “You can image the opposite,” ideally urging us to be creative, curious and virtuous.

As always, there are several pieces to the scenario of Milan design week. In Pavilions 13-15, we see the return of SaloneSatellite, founded in 1998 by Marva Griffin and curated by her, for its 24th edition, giving space to designers under 35, with a focus on schools and universities of design to emphasize the indelible contribution they have made, and continue to make, to the training of future designers and the development of design. A place of experimentation and discovery that will feature a talk by the artist Gaetano Pesce – an Italian sculptor, designer and architect who has been based in New York for years – in which he will discuss the main steps of his long career and his unforgettable interdisciplinary contribution to the world of design.