Twilight, shadow or absolute darkness: for the fourth day of the Design Week, Domus looks for darkness and finds it! The five selected stages all take place out of the warm Milanese April sun, in dark interiors where artificial light is an integral part of the installations.

In the vast underground hall of Palazzo Citterio, "Loewe teapots" illuminates 25 small teapots with precisely directed spotlights; these unique pieces were created especially for the Fuorisalone. Not far away, in the cloister of Santa Maria del Carmine, soft lighting is an integral part of the wellness experience of "The Second Skin", Aesop's highly successful exhibition and experience. 

Also in the city centre, at the Teatro Lirico, Giorgio Gaber, Formafantasma (curators) and Fabio Cherstich (director) have created a refined dialogue between actors and historical objects of the Cassina brand. The sounds, lights and atmosphere of a club night are the ingredients of "The Suspended Hour", the collaboration between Nike and Pan presented in Capsule Plaza.

The end of the itinerary is as dark as the night: the installation by Ivy Ross and Lachlan Turczan for Google is called Making the invisible visible: it achieves its goal by filling the space of Garage 21 with six cylinders of light and sound that react to the touch of visitors.

As Ivy Ross, VP of Design at Google, explained to Domus last year, participating in the world’s largest design fair is a pivotal moment for the company. This year, the tech giant from California doesn’t disappoint. In fact, its installation is arguably the most successful one yet. The centerpiece is Lucida, by American artist Lachlan Turczan: six cylinders made of light and sound that respond to touch, rippling and shifting tones. Each visitor creates their own unique soundscape, which blends with those of others in the room.

“It’s a little like life – being alone and being together,” explains Ross. There are all sorts of variations in the experience, including stepping into someone else’s cylinder.

In the following rooms, a climate-focused installation features Google’s Nest thermostat, while the “usual” room offers a candid and straightforward exploration of the connection between the natural world and Google’s material design. For instance, we learn that the peony-pink earbuds were inspired by a Japanese candy, after a member of the design team traveled to Tokyo.

It’s hard to go wrong with an installation in the underground hall of Palazzo Citterio, a sublime bunker made of a single material – exposed concrete – designed by James Stirling in the late 1980s. This is confirmed by the “Loewe Teapots” exhibition, created by the Spanish brand for Design Week 2025. In 2024, the “Loewe Lamps” filled this monumental void with slender, full-height metal columns, interspersed with lamps suspended at varying heights.

This year’s installation is more minimalist and “absolute”: a single parallelepiped diagonally crosses the space, enclosing the column with a mushroom-shaped capital that marks its geometric center. The teapots, designed by 25 designers and artists, are arranged at regular intervals along this seamless surface. These small, precious objects are illuminated by spotlights, emerging from the surrounding darkness.

Let’s be clear: the easiest way to stand out in the chaos of Design Week is by using architecture to express who you are. Furniture brands often fall short, buried under a mountain of products. Aesop, however, nails it. The beauty brand, known for its signature approach to interior design, has set up in the Chiesa del Carmine, transforming it into a wellness space perfectly aligned with its values, offering a much-needed break from the frenzy of Fuorisalone. 

“The skin is the barrier that protects us from the world. This installation is meant to be a second skin,” says Marianne Lardilleux, Aesop’s Global Retail Design Director (who, by the way, is also an architect), speaking to Domus. “Salone is the opportunity to connect our products with architecture.” 

Everything here is fragrant, everything soothing. The balance between emptiness and fullness is finely tuned. Patchouli, cedarwood, and clove – Aesop’s signature scents – drift through the space. There’s also a massage room, featuring a beautiful Gio Ponti sofa. The products? Few, essential. Perfect. 

For this Milan Design Week, Nike collaborates with the Pan label founded by Bill Kouligas, a reference figure in the last decade for electronic music research and clubbing.

And it is precisely from an exploration of the club as a place of ritual and sound archaeologies, curated by Kouligas with Niklas Bildstein Zaar, that the presentation of the Air Max 180 Nix begins: inside an industrial space, a floor unravelled by the footprints of countless nights, large circular glass panels are the source of sound, while a sci-fi (and rather green) Pan god watches over us, and, among the fumes and auditory carpets, a study is developed of how a shoe is solicited precisely by these countless nights. The new model is born intercepting all these stimuli, defining the club as a culturally charged design ground.

The freshest and most surprising highlight of this Design Week is, paradoxically, one of the oldest: theater. Curated by the ever-present Formafantasma and directed by Fabio Cherstich, the stage and seating at the Teatro Lirico are transformed into a performance space where actors and furniture interact. And what furniture: the Cassina collection designed by Le Corbusier, Jeanneret, and Perriand, celebrating 60 years.

The performance is both exhilarating and unsettling, almost a visceral response to Wilson’s poignant work at the Pietà Rondanini. In the foyer, a few displays offer context for the collection, showcasing archival documents – hardly groundbreaking, but forgivable. A must-see.