2018 International Furniture Fair: what to see in the Zona Santambrogio Design District

Zona Santambrogio, created by Re.Urban Studio and with the patronage of the Municipality of Milan. is a communication project set in the heart of the city, in the area between Via San Vittore and Piazza Castello. During the Fuorisalone, it offers a continuous flow of events and projects, from the history of Milanese architecture, via innovation by young designers, to a vision of the city of the future.

DOUTDESign, at La Cordata, will see presentations by selected designers under the age of 35 from all over the world, presenting innovative prototypes and products, with a focus on self-production and sustainability in processes. This year, it will be presenting a brand-new product, the “Poltrona Sospesa [Suspended Chair]” by Franco Albini, and the second edition of “INHABITS - Milano Design City” in Piazza Castello and Parco Sempione, in collaboration with the DDN - Design Diffusion publishing house. Inspired by the Universal Exposition, and in particular the Milan Triennale of the early 1900s, in which companies and designers displayed the best of contemporary living production, INHABITS provides the inhabitants of the future with innovative solutions for experiencing the urban and suburban space, through technology, materials and brands.

The Franco Albini and Achille Castiglioni Foundations will be opening their historic headquarters to the public. This year, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Achille Castigilioni’s birth, The Foundation has put together a special exhibition/event, “100x100 Achille”, with an extraordinary event. Some of the most important designers in the world have been invited to a grand celebration, and they have been asked to choose a present for Achille, which they have sent, together with a personalised greetings card.
The party is an opportunity to celebrate Achille Castiglioni and all that the grand maestro has meant for contemporary design and its contemporary figures.
The Rossana Orlandi space will also be open to the public for the entire week of the Fuorisalone, a universe suspended in time, the beating heart of a Milan which feeds on art.

Officine Saffi will be presenting The thing in your mind, the first ever Italian one-man-show by Anders Ruhwald. The title and the concept are tied to the definition which Ruhwald gives to his sculptures, site sensitive sculptures which provoke conceptual reflections for the viewer, setting off chains of memories, desires, cognitive illusions and false tautologies of images, beginning with the innovative relationship that the objects establish with the environment and the architecture.
At Avanzamento Progressivo, an open laboratory, visitors can meet artists and take part in multi-disciplinary events such as live painting, bookbinding, discussions on the state of contemporary art, video and documentary screenings and selections of music on vinyl. The space will change aspect every day, including the spectator in the creative process of the artists who, during the Fuorisalone, will be putting on display the works that they gradually complete, in a space that will initially be empty.

Cascina Nascosta will present the work TOKITALY, “Shibuya: a meeting between design and artisanship” by Alessandro Iovane, and the FORO exhibition by Foro Studio. Art Gallery, instead, will be presenting the creativity of Anna Maria Tulli and her story, told through macro photographs of walls which create pictures and furnishings. “Portraits” of majestic animals, full of energy, cover the walls of the unusual exhibition space located in a farmhouse in the heart of the city.