Gucci’s exhibition for Milan Design Week 2025, “Gucci Bamboo Encounters,” is a clear tribute to one of the brand’s most iconic bags, the 1947 Gucci Bamboo. Yet, not a single one of these bags is on display. This is a wise choice: while Milan is filled with objects of every shape and function across its public spaces, squares, and buildings, the fashion house reimagines the cloisters of San Simpliciano with an alternative approach – more abstract, evocative, less overtly promotional, and with a deeper artistic ambition.

The designer and curator of the exhibition, as well as the series of talks and events, is 2050+ by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, a refined and rigorous architect who has long collaborated with Rem Koolhaas. It’s no coincidence that the installation presents itself as an architectural infrastructure, challenging the geometries of the small cloister. The space is divided into two parts, with one half occupied by an elevated platform that seamlessly extends from the open courtyard into the covered colonnades. An octagonal trellis – perfect in its geometry but distinct from the square shape of the historic building – marks the presence of an amphitheater recessed into the thickness of the platform.

Bamboo exists as a landscape (the forest occupying the other half of the cloister) and also appears as a detail or evocation within the architecture and installations by seven selected designers and artists: Anton Alvarez, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Laurids Gallée, Kite Club, Sisan Lee, Dima Srouji and the back studio. As the curators describe, these works together “celebrate the trans-temporal and trans-geographical essence of bamboo, as a series of encounters in dialogue with the surrounding environment and the historic heritage of the Maison.”

To bring this vision to life, the team turned to one of the city’s most esteemed and precise architectural firms, 2050+ by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, who both designed the exhibition and curated the series of talks and events held there.