Milan Design Week 2023

Introducing TDC's Top Ten

This year’s Milan Design Week theme, Laboratorio Futuro, proposes a reflection on how we imagine our future.

An opportunity to debate, imagine and build alternative narratives through collective design dialogue. Brands and designers will explore experiential dimensions of design, while inviting visitors and spectators alike to question how we want to design to be an agent for change.

From sustainable design, circular economy and innovative materials to urban regeneration, technological advances and artificial intelligence; this edition of Milan Design Week will shed light on critical issues of our time.

Here are TDC’s top picks for 2023, and to help you find these events, we have created a?TDC Milan Map?here.

Alcova

Returning for its 2023 edition, Alcova is the platform for independent design created by Studio?Vedèt and Space Caviar. Now in a new site, the former Porta Vittoria abattoir, Alcova will return full of events across the week, including performances, talks, exhibitions, screenings and installations.?

Ex Macello Viale Molise, 62, Milano

casa blond

East London design studio, blond will be hosting?a pop-up residency in the Brera Design District. casa BLOND will host the full blond studio team,?running 'blond artefacts' - interactive design sessions for visitors and exhibiting a self-initiated furniture project called the Peel Chair. casa blond will also play host to blond’s collaboration with two exciting start-up clients. Tesoro, a sustainably driven British homeware company, will soft launch their brand and first product, and?Impulse, a US home electrification startup that decloaked in November 2022 after raising $25m in total funding, will showcase their next-generation battery-integrated induction stove.

Via Pietro Maroncelli, 7, 20154 Milano, Italy

Lexus presents Shaped by Air and Lexus Design Award 2023

Lexus will return to Milan Design Week this year with a new installation by acclaimed New York artist and architect Suchi Reddy. ‘Shaped by Air’ will form the centrepiece of its presence at the world-leading celebration of international design, taking place at Superstudio, via Tortona 27, from April 17 to 23. The occasion will also see the public unveiling of the prototypes created by the four winners in the 2023 Lexus Design Award.

Lexus has partnered with Diorama, a Milan and Paris-based digital creative agency, to create a metaverse experience inspired by Suchi Reddy's second iteration of “Shaped by Air”. The immersive digital experience will launch on?discoverlexus.com?on 17th April.

Superstudio Più, Via Tortona 27

Teatro Albers

The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation & AMO will present Teatro Albers for MDW 2023 with Marco Campardo and Laura de Cesare. Teatro Albers will be a celebration of contemporary handmade design curated by Ambra Medda and Veronica Sommaruga. The exhibition also marks a new collaboration that has seen the Foundation invite AMO to interpret and reproduce pieces from the archive in ways that make sense of the present day.?

Teatro Istituto Marcelline Tommaseo, Via Francesco Petrarca ang. Piazza Tommaseo

ECAL - JUNKYARD DIVING

ECAL University of Art and Design Lausanne presents four?exhibitions as part of Milan Design Week -?U.F.O.G.O. realized by Master Product Design students, JUNKYARD DIVING realized by Bachelor Industrial Design students, THE SALONE PICK-UP, the diploma project continuation of Silvio Rebholz ECAL Master Product Design graduate, and ECAL FOR SCH?TTI also realized by Master Product Design students. We are excited to see all the ECAL projects and in particular, JUNKYARD DIVING - a project build from a workshop with Philippe Malouin, encouraging students to look for new functions inspired by forms found in a metal recycling centre.

House of Switzerland, Casa degli Artisti – Corso Garibaldi 89A

Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake 's Milan flagship store will host a special exhibition ‘THINKING DESIGN, MAKING DESIGN: TYPE -V Nature Architects’ during Milan Design Week from Tuesday, April 18 to Sunday, April 23, 2023. The exhibition, conceived as the latest collaborative project of A- POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE, explores the role of design in terms of structure, materials and manufacturing and how they are integrated into a single manufacturing process. It is a project that explores the new possibilities of a piece of fabric by exhibiting a prototype that combines Nature Architects’ latest design solutions and A- POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE ‘s manufacturing system.

Issey Miyake Flagship Store, Via Bagutta 12

Google

谷歌 are to present 'Shaped by Water', an immersive multi-space installation that explores our connection to water as humans and as a source of inspiration for design. Co-created by Google’s Vice President of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross, and her design team in collaboration with water, light, and sound artist Lachlan Turczan, Shaped by Water will be on view at Garage 21 from April 18 through 23, 2023.

Garage 21, Via Archimede 2

Physical creativity meets web3 innovation at Milan's new Motel D

The world of entertainment is changing at unprecedented pace. And a special event at Milan's newest creative community space Motel D offers a peek into the future, where the possibilities of digital dovetail with audiences' craving for elevated physical experiences.

Motel D is the home of Diorama, a digital creative agency based across Milan and Paris, and the first of its kind in Italy. This 700 square metre space is designed to encourage artists, designers, digital creators and web3 professionals to mingle, network and exchange ideas. It opens on 19 April with a four-night extravaganza titled Technicolor.

Technicolor takes place at Motel D (Viale Emilio Caldara, 13, 20122 Milan) and is a ticketed event:?motel-d.com/tickets/

Viale Emilio Caldara, 13, 20122 Milan

Gubi - TEN Exhibition

In celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Beetle chair by Danish-Italian duo GamFratesi, contemporary Danish?design company, GUBI , has invited?ten artists to reinterpret the now iconic seat. Curated by Marco Sammicheli, the TEN exhibition is set to take place at Bagni Misteriosi.

Bagni Misteriosi

Cristina Celestino Clay Court Club

Cristina Celestino revisits the historic Tennis Club Milano Bonacossa designed by Giovanni Muzio in 1923. The iconic club is counted among the key examples of modern gardens,?unfolding as an indoor-outdoor space where the densely metaphysical atmosphere is pervaded by a classical and timeless language. Clay Court Club originates from the relationship between the existing architecture and the most functional yet playful aspect of the game of tennis. The study of the connection between linear shapes and semicircles, one of Muzio’s favourite architectural themes, becomes the link between objects in the space and the role of materials - compositional and never decorative. For MDW, a special pop up restaurant will interact with the project creating a unique culinary experience, while tennis courts will be made available for booking for the duration of the event.

Giuseppe Arimondi 15, Milano