Lombardini22 designs Euroluce 2023, the city of light and culture at the Salone del Mobile, with a new exhibition itinerary featuring not-to-be missed exhibitions and talks
Euroluce will be held in Pavilions 9-11 and 13-15 at Fiera Milano Rho, April 18-23, 2023. This edition promises to be a milestone in the development and evolution of the trade fair’s format and visitor experience. The Salone del Mobile.Milano asked Lombardini22, the Milan-based architecture and engineering studio, to rethink the exhibition layout to create a more engaging and contemporary business platform.
The architects were asked to improve the connection between the four pavilions, improve the visitor experience and exhibitors’ visibility.
Euroluce 2023, the city of lights and culture
The studio drew inspiration from the spatiality of Italian city centers. Euroluce 2023 will present itself as a city of lights, boasting an irregular, fluid and free circular route. Rather than being stand-centric, the layout will be human-centric and visitor experience-based.
An original cultural content concept was developed around this new exhibition plan, with Beppe Finessi responsible for the scientific project and the artistic direction, conducive to structured and multidisciplinary exhibition activities with a series of public areas and spaces devoted to interface, exchange, culture and the arts.
One of these spaces, Aurore, the large arena (Pav. 13) designed by Formafantasma, will be a stopping point offering synesthetic experiences thanks to design solutions combining forms, colors, materials, lights and sounds. This piazza-like space will also host talks, conferences and lectures. Business and culture will thus be integrated into the daily workings of the event, ensuring that the space becomes a source of surprises, inspiration and dialogue.
The new exhibition spaces designed by Lombardini22
Lombardini22 explored the perceptual dimension of the pavilions enhancing their potential uses. Analyzing the way in which spaces influence visitors’ flows and movements enabled the designers to map a layout favoring people’s movement on an efficient and intuitive visitor path.
Lombardini22 asked themselves how to illuminate Euroluce. The answer was, “by switching everything off!” As a result, the new layout is a sort of dark box in which light, channeling poetry and emotion, shines through from the stands of the exhibiting companies.
Not-to-be-missed exhibitions at Euroluce 2023
Massimo Curzi will curate Hélène Binet’s solo exhibition and its exhibition design. The exhibition of one of the most prominent contemporary photographers will explore the relationship between natural light and architecture through an original selection of images. Martina Sanzarello will curate an exhibition dedicated to the traditional incandescent light bulb. Matteo Pirola is the curator of the exhibition dedicated to “artificial stars”, the luminous devices being examined by today’s “astronomer-designers”. The exhibition will display orbiting spheres, reflective surfaces, blinding eclipses, colored dawns, with exhibition design by From outer Space.
Michele Calzavara will curate an exhibition of architectural images of interiors in which artificial light is the protagonist. Berfu Bengisu Goren’s exhibition design will have a hybrid character since the actual exhibition space is an area dedicated to workshops and professional meetings.
Lastly, Maurizio Nannucci, one of the most powerful interpreters of artificial light in contemporary art, will present a luminous neon sign: “You can imagine the opposite”, exhorting the viewer to feel free to adopt a creative and virtuous approach. Another important space will be represented by the specialist design, art and illustration bookshop, which will also stock works of literature exploring the theme of light in different ways. The space will be curated by Corraini Editori and designed by studio Formafantasma. The Euroluce pavilions will also feature a bistro and fine dining restaurant, designed by Piero Lissoni.
What’s new at the SaloneSatellite
27 design schools and universities from 16 countries and around 550 talented young people from 34 countries will breathe life into the upcoming edition of the SaloneSatellite. Keenly-awaited guest Gaetano Pesce will inspire and inject energy into all the promising young international design talents.
Design: WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
Design Schools – Universities / BUILDING THE (IM)POSSIBLE Process, Progress, Practice is the lead theme for the SaloneSatellite 2023. In particular, the design schools and universities have been asked to respond to the question Design: WHERE ARE YOU GOING? Through the installation and the presentation of the work of the graduates-to-be, it will be possible to draw up an ideal collective map of design visions that will signal the challenges we are likely to encounter next and how to tackle them from the point of view of design and its teaching.
To help visualize the close relationship between the training process and the design development of the designers, the stands will be arranged around an outer loop that will encompass the approximately 550 exhibitors from 34 different countries. The inspiration for the installation, curated by architect Ricardo Bello Dias, came from Euroluce, the event with which the SaloneSatellite will share the space in Pavilions 13-15.
SaloneSatellite borders with Euroluce
Lastly, SaloneSatellite will pay a tribute to Euroluce with a special exhibition: “Sate-Light. 1998-2022 SaloneSatellite young designers”. Symbolically set up on the boundary between the two areas – which will be highlighted by luminous projections –, it will showcase most of the lamps created by designers who have taken part in the various editions over the years that have gone into production thanks to the collaboration with companies who put their faith in the promising young talents. These partnerships, initiated at SaloneSatellite and sealed by success, serve to underscore the main objective of the event, which is to bring creativity and the business world together.
The SaloneSatellite Award
Now in its 12th edition, the SaloneSatellite Award will be assigned to the three most deserving projects (and also provides for up to two Honourable Mentions). All the contending prototypes will, as always, be showcased in a dedicated exhibition and assessed by an international jury, led, from the first edition onwards, by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator Department of Architecture and Design and Director, Research and Development of the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York.
Last but not least, the intervention of the master Gaetano Pesce – the Italian sculptor, designer and architect, who has been based in New York for years – is keenly awaited. He has been invited to an event held in the SaloneSatellite Arena to talk about the fundamental steps in his lengthy career and his lasting interdisciplinary contribution to the design world.
Entry to SaloneSatellite is free and open to the public April 18-23, with direct access from Cargo 4. The event can also be accessed internally from Euroluce for those in possession of entry tickets to the Salone del Mobile.Milano.
