The 62nd edition of the Salone del Mobile with EuroCucina, International Bathroom Exhibition, Workplace 3.0, S.Project and SaloneSatellite summons the global design audience from April 16 to 21, 2024
The 62nd edition of the Salone del Mobile.Milano will take place at Fiera Milano Rho from April 16 to 21, 2024. This edition is poised to bring what is “beautiful” and “well-made” back to a unique stage in terms of international importance through an entirely new approach centered on the “human at the center” philosophy.
This year’s event will welcome more than 1,900 exhibitors, including 600 young talents under 35 and 22 design schools, and will be divided into Salone Internazionale del Mobile, International Furnishing Exhibition, Workplace 3.0, S.Project, EuroCucina with its collateral event FTK, International Bathroom Exhibition, and SaloneSatellite.
What’s new at the Salone del Mobile 2024
Held last February 13 at Teatro Strehler in Milan, the press conference to present the Salone del Mobile 2024 was attended by many prominent figures including Maria Porro, President of Salone del Mobile.Milano, Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan; Barbara Mazzali, Lombardy Region’s Councillor for Tourism, Territorial Marketing and Fashion; Stefano Maffei, Professor at Politecnico di Milano, Juri Franzesi from Lombardini22; Marva Griffin, SaloneSatellite Founder, Beppe Finessi, Curator of Universo Satellite, Emiliano Ponzi with Accurat and Design Group, Simone Farresin from Formafantasma.
Among the new features of this new edition are the relaunch and optimization of the layouts and routes of EuroCucina and International Bathroom Exhibition; the total redistribution of the pavilions with the aim of grouping exhibitors by content and visitor target in order to amplify the value and meaning of the visitor experience; a new rich and multidisciplinary cultural proposal, spread throughout the event. A new, constantly evolving communication campaign that, thanks to artificial intelligence, gathers conversations from the project’s international community; collaboration with the Department and School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, aimed at investigating the Salone as an ecosystem, delving into the phenomenon in its socio-economic scope on the territory.
Added to this are celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the SaloneSatellite with an exhibition at the Triennale that, beyond traditional exhibition canons, will be a veritable Wunderkammer of objects, prototypes, sketches, images and testimonials.
The year of the biennials dedicated to the bathroom and the kitchen
Next April’s edition will feature the biennials EuroCucina, with its side event FTK, Technology For the Kitchen (pavilions 2-4) and International Bathroom Exhibition (pavilions 6-10), which will be renovated in their exhibition layout, redesigned by Lombardini22, a leading group on the Italian architecture and engineering scene. At the request of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, the firm, for the first time in the trade fair environment, resorted to neuroscience to improve the visitor experience by analyzing the neurological, emotional and perceptual reactions of visitors to the different paths, placement and distribution of exhibition and rest areas.
After various experiments in a virtual environment, the ring-shaped route chosen for both biennials is more intuitive, being simple to walk and easy to remember, and the exhibition offering is full of
significance along the whole route. A symmetrical path has been created by setting the stands against the external perimeter walls; the main aisles have been made wider to improve orientation; and cultural installations and breakout areas have been installed to cope with the typical museum fatigue also experienced at the Salone despite the wonders on display. In particular, to visit all the stands, visitors will have to walk just 640 meters instead of the previous 1.2 kilometers.
The 25th edition of the SaloneSatellite
This is a special year for the SaloneSatellite (pavilions 5-7), which will be celebrating its 25th edition with 600 talents and 22 design schools. This year’s theme is “Connecting Design since 1998”, highlighting how this event has, for a quarter of a century, introduced and nurtured more than 14,000 budding designers and woven fruitful relationships between cultures and projects from around the world.
To celebrate this event, a major exhibition will be staged from 16 to 28 April in the spaces of La Triennale, with exhibition project curated by Beppe Finessi and designed by Ricardo Bello Dias, which rethinks the event’s history without falling into the trap of the mere parade of objects. On the contrary, it will stage the wonderful and complex relationship between the world of production and these young talents who have brought new ideas to design and the domestic universe from many different parts of the world.
Installations at the Salone del Mobile.Milano 2024
David Lynch
This edition will also feature three large installations. The first, “Interiors by David Lynch. A Thinking Room” (Pavilions 5-7), is the installation that David Lynch, the famous filmmaker of the unconscious, has given the Salone del Mobile. Two identical “thinking rooms” are imagined as symbolic doors to pass through and become immersed in the fair. With them, Salone del Mobile.Milano offers an original and imaginative reflection on the production of interiors and on its profound relationship with the inwardness of those who furnish these spaces as an external projection of the self.
Emiliano Ponzi
Ethics, sustainability, technology as well as the power, charm and fragility of water inspired “Under the Surface”, the second installation, designed and created by Accurat, Design Group Italia and Emiliano Ponzi, for the International Bathroom Exhibition (pavilion 10).
“Under the Surface” invites and involves visitors in immersive ways to think about the theme of the positive and respectful relationship with the most precious natural resource on earth and the role of the bathroom furniture supply chain in guiding us towards a more aware use of water.
The installation is shaped like a submerged island, generating a visual and evocative yet deeply educational narrative that helps visitors become aware of the environmental impact of our daily water-related practices. The reflections of light, moving and changing incessantly, represent the data for global water consumption, while, through the innovative use of dynamic data-visualization, it will recount the technological and manufacturing advances related to the conservation of water in the field of bathroom furnishings.
Food Design in Six Performances
The centerpiece of EuroCucina will be the large stage hosting six independent, international food magazines. Together with artists, designers and chefs from around the world, they will present a new and original vision of the present and future of the ingredients that nature offers us.
“All You Have Ever Wanted to Know About Food Design in Six Performances” is the title of these projects that, along with reflections, exhibitions, talks and taste experiences, will follow one another day after day. The magazines F Family Style (United States), L’Integrale (Italy), Linseed Journal (United Kingdom), Magazine F (South Korea) The Preserve Journal (Austria), Farta (Portugal) will enliven the debate on the challenges and opportunities that the food sector offers to the world of design.
The installations will be open to visitors all through the fair’s opening hours, while the food tasting experiences and the presentations of the projects and editorial visions that accompany them will take place live at 2.30 p.m.
Talks and round tables
The program of Talks and Round Tables, entitled “Drafting Futures. Conversations about Next Perspectives”, curated by Annalisa Rosso, will bring together some of the most interesting personalities of our time, industry professionals whose virtuous practices are laying the groundwork for a more conscious and sustainable future. The morning talks will be held at 11.00 a.m. in the “Drafting Futures” Arena designed by Formafantasma. Speaking on the platform will be Jeanne Gang, FAIA, Studio Gang Founding Partner, Johanna Agerman Ross, curator of contemporary design at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery, Maria Porro, President of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, Francis Kéré, architect, Kéré Architecture founder, winner of the Pritzker Prize, John Pawson, architect and founder of the eponymous practice, Deyan Sudjic OBE, author, critic and curator.
On the other hand, the round tables will address some of the crucial topics in current design and architecture, such as the use of artificial intelligence, the relationship between boating and design in collaboration with the Genoa International Boat Show, and all the news in the hospitality sector.
New cultural projects
In this edition, a new project will also be inaugurated in the Arena: the Salone del Mobile Library, also designed by Formafantasma, which will collect, as suggested by the speakers of this and future editions, volumes destined to change for the better our future actions and perspectives.
Lastly, next to the Arena there will be the Corraini Mobile Bookshop also this year.Curated by Corraini Edizioni, which will display and sell a wide selection of international publications dedicated to the world of design, art and illustration, with an eye also on the theme of food design and food in general, from more than 110 publishers. There will also be posters, limited edition graphics, ceramics, small art objects and unique pieces.
In short, this new Salone del Mobile promises to be memorable: exciting and stimulating, but above all capable of creating relations and business connections, even long-term ones.
