20 objects picked to give you an idea of the Salone

“We believe that digitization will progressively decrease the presence of physical books. Libraries will increasingly become communal spaces where people meet and spend their time.” This is a firm conviction at Snøhetta, which has been designing buildings for cultural purposes for over 25 years. It has joined forces with UniFor to carry out a research project, begun in 2019, which is defining a series of objects intended to redesign the meaning of libraries. Bokhus (below) is the first: a bookcase system that blends Italian craft skills and engineering with Scandinavian elegance and material qualities. It uses recycled aluminium, wood and cellulose and adopts a production technique that enables each component to be detached, recycled and disposed of appropriately. Another proposal for the Salone is XYZ (top), a flexible office system designed by Foster + Partners, consisting of a bookcase X, a table for informal meetings Y and a height adjustable desk Z. LM

Born in France a and a graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven, Claire Chérigié is one of the four designers (with Tim Couwenberg, Albert Potgieter and Envisions Design Agency) representing the Netherlands at the SaloneSatellite. They have researched innovative materials and solutions related to sustainability, social inclusion and education, starting with a rereading of traditional techniques. Chérigié’s Dawn to Dusk takes us into the field of interactive design, making us reflect on our more or less conscious relationship with time and our perception of it. LM

The Super Random project by Gio Tirotto for Manerba has been designed in accordance with a number of key principles: sustainability, transformability and disassemblability. Conceived for workspaces, this furniture system can be used to shape spaces with straight and curved lines. The designer’s research has concentrated on the use of a single technology, bending FSC-certified plywood, to make all the elements: the supporting legs as well as the removable upholstery, shelves and an independent stackable stool. ES

For the 50th anniversary of the iMaestri collection, Cassina has bet on an iconic piece from its historic catalogue – the Chaise longue à réglage continu by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand – and the evocative location of Palazzo Broggi, restored and reopened last year. The show “Echoes: 50 years of iMaestri”, curated by art director Patricia Urquiola with Federica Sala, describes the approach needed to edit great classics while respecting the design’s authenticity, a sort of preview of Ivan Mietton’s book to be published this autumn. LM

For some years, Cristina Celestino has accustomed us to her elegant and delicate “incursions” in search of new places at the Fuorisalone. It is a titanic undertaking given the density of events occupying every square metre of the city, yet this designer from Friuli seems particularly good at it. Following the Tram Corallo (2018), a 1928 tram transformed into a luxury lounge, and the exhibition at Fioraio Radaelli (2022), a historic shop designed by Guglielmo Ulrich in 1945, this year Celestino invites us to the Milano Bonacossa Tennis Club designed by Giovanni Muzio in 1923.

In addition to products for Atmosphera, Besana Carpet Lab, Bilumen, Skillmax, Barbisio, Dedar and Quinti, the show will also present the new Raquette collection for Billiani, which is a tribute to the age-old technique of weaving strips of wood and is inspired by the world of tennis. In fact, the sides of the seats, with textured panels inside the frames, resemble the strings of a racket. Throughout the week, the We Are One collective will be running a pop-up restaurant while the tennis courts can be booked for lessons or matches. ES 

Promoting the development of traditional craft from the United Arab Emirates and creating new market opportunities for local craftswomen are the aims of the Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council of Sharjah. The exhibition “Recipes for the Future” curated by Mr. Lawrence has involved Studiopepe (who have designed accessories for the kitchen and table made from black clay) and Casalinghe di Tokyo, who have created a culinary experience that merges two different cultures. ES

Alcova’s exhibition programme this year opens in the spaces of the Mattatoio, where we find a collective that brings together the best of Hungarian design, curated by Gáspár Bonta. Tradition, craftsmanship and art are combined in the works by 37 designers notable for a strong poetic and experimental imprint. Such are the pieces by Dega Design (Ágnes Deli and Endre Gaál), which favour recycled materials such as wood, glass and fabrics (above, a coffee table). LM

At the SaloneSatellite, 13 young designers with different backgrounds, talents and practices – braided fabrics, precious wood, marble discards and even steel – are united thanks to craftsmanship. Their design is hybrid, human and poetic. For example, the works by the duo Ahokpe + Chatelin that, made up of a textile designer and an artisan weaver, investigate weaving for domestic use, enhancing the cultures of their respective countries, Benin and Belgium. Meanwhile, Joe Sterck (in the next photo) works between furniture and sculpture, exploring the boundaries of functionality. ES

What is the social responsibility of design? What does it mean to make less, reassess local production, acquire autonomy in the supply chain or production process, improve cocreation or reduce our footprint? This year the Swiss collective explores today’s challenges by confiding in the answers of over 100 emerging designers, independent studios, established brands and institutions active in training and research who responded to the “Urgent Legacy” call by Pro Helvetia and Presenza Svizzera. LM

The exhibition curated by Byungjun Koo and organised by the Korea Craft & Design Foundation, which brings Korean craftsmanship to the Feltrinelli Foundation, focuses on Korea’s unique regional and cultural characters. Twenty craft artists active in various fields, including ceramics, metal, wood, glass, lacquer and painting, with the use of ancient materials such as iron, seek to demonstrate the potential of moving from tradition to transmission and from adaptation to application, through ten different artistic interpretations. LM

The Brazilian company celebrates 30 years of the Estel collection with a retrospective exhibition and an installation that brings together the most significant pieces in their history along with a new entry, Percival Lafer (1936), a pioneer of Brazilian modernism. Alongside limited editions by Jorge Zalszupin (with a reissue of his Kanguru chair planned for 2023), Oscar Niemeyer, Gregori Warchavchik and Claudia Moreira Salles, there will be a special edition of the Chair 22 by Etel Carmona with straw seat and back. ES

The divider by Ville Kokkonen for Karimoku is simple, solid, rational and, like all objects in the MAS collection, uses Japanese conifers, in particular the abundant and underused Japanese cypress. The Finnish designer – former design director of Artek, working with the Japanese brand for the first time – has come up with a piece made up of modular panels, connected by three hinges, also made from wood. The profile of the frame has been designed to lift and move the object around, folding it back on itself or arranging it in different positions. ES

Telegram, the new collection of Formafantasma for CC-Tapis, was born not only from the desire to salvage discards, but especially to celebrate the work behind each handmade object. Artisans can freely express themselves with fabric offcuts, weaving together chosen words. Thus the series is composed of a melange of patterns that, like telegrams, narrate names and ideas of each of them, and contain the answers to the designers’ questions: where do they come from, what do they see as they look out the window while working? ES

Mathare, one of Nairobi’s biggest slums, is the focus of the project Design for communities, the result of a partnership between Giacomo Moor and the NGO Liveinslums, which is engaged in regeneration by providing children and adolescents of Mathare with the means they need to return to school and society. Moor’s intervention continues the work of Francesco Faccin in 2012 by designing classrooms and chairs for the local school Why Not Academy, creating prototypes for the cafeteria and dormitory furniture – benches, tables and beds – directly with local teens. 

The main idea is to involve inhabitants in the areas of intervention as key players in these transformations, by working on their skills and making them independent. An exhibition at Assab One will describe this project to the public through Moor’s furnishings with photos by Francesco Giusti, Filippo Romano, Mattia Zoppellaro and Alessandro Treves of Perimetro. LM

A self-taught designer, refined publisher and manufacturer, Christophe Delcourt is the creator of a table, Nin, whose base resembles a small sculpture, and a series of padded furnishings, Zae, with inviting forms. Presented in January at Maison&Objet, they have now evolved into the broader collection At the Edge of the Woods, which also includes a coffee table, console and round table. The leitmotif lies in the natural materials: the brushed durmast of the table joined with high-end furniture craftsmanship, and the natural upholstery of the sofa, part of the new Delcourt Textiles collection. ES

Romeo Sozzi continues the painstaking task of enhancing and experimenting with Bottega Ghianda, a company-workshop founded in the 1800s and known internationally for its woodworking. After the ambitious pieces by Philippe Starck, Álvaro Siza and Marc Ferrand, this year it’s Gaetano Pesce’s turn to get involved, with his “Luigi o mi amate voi?” bookshelf, an early 1980s design for Bernini. This hybrid has a frame in black satin-finished beech wood, shelves in epoxy resin, and LED lights, which makes it see through but also a little magical. ES

The company continues with the Remasters project, which draws on the rich heritage of iconic design pieces from the 1970s and gives them a new life. This year, the choice fell on two creations by Claudio Salocchi and the Due Più chair by Nanda Vigo, which will be present at fair and also in the Spotti shop on Viale Piave. The new re-editions are an opportunity to introduce a few variations in line with the original design. In Vigo’s case, it is the exuberant upholstery in white and rust-coloured Mongolian fur. LM

The S220 series – made up of chairs and stools designed by the British studio Industrial Facility for the historic German company Thonet – is characterised by the silhouette of the backrest, which is identical to the one of the iconic No. 214, but “full”. The shell is ergonomic and stackable thanks to the moulded plywood material. And it has a tubular steel frame. “We wanted to eliminate as much visual noise as possible,” explain Sam Hecht and Kim Colin, “while increasing comfort and functionality.” ES

The operation of enhancing classics of the past that have distinguished themselves for innovation continues at Zanotta with the reissue, revised in materials and dimensions, of the Galeotta armchair designed in 1968 by De Pas D’Urbino and Lomazzi. The freedom of movement in its three component blocks makes a contemporary piece, with folding cushions that open and turn it into a chaise longue and méridienne. You can sit or semi-recline in it, with two different inclinations of the backrest. LM

In the former slaughterhouse, the design journalists Elena Cattaneo and Laura Traldi are curating “This is Denmark”, a group show with 15 Danish designers and brands, a project by the Royal Embassy of Denmark in Italy with the Confederation of Danish Industry and Creative Denmark. On an immersive stage, a wooden platform designed by Matteo Ragni Studio emerges from the water, where the objects (15 in all) will tell their stories: the young brand 101 Copenhagen (which combines art, design, brutalism and poetry) alongside the historic Fredericia (which has brought to the Salone the re-edition of a chair by Nanna Ditzel); the brand &Tradition (founded in 2010, combining Danish modernism with contemporary pieces) alongside Astep (a lighting company inspired by technology and archive designs). Plus Kvadrat, Kay Bojesen, Houe, Notes of Colour, Royal Copenhagen, Studio Roso, Mernøe, House of Finn Juhl, Skovby, Aytm and Carlsberg. These 15 stories outline a coherent landscape dominated by attention to people and nature, sustainability, respect for tradition and craftsmanship. ES