Until a few years ago, Opos held annual competitions to select, present and promote the most gifted young designers from Italy (and elsewhere) at the Furniture Fair. Between 1990 and 2001, thanks in part to the visionary association founded by Alberto Zanone, we saw a new generation of designers – e.g. Fabio Bortolani, Paolo Ulian, Donata Paruccini, Lorenzo Damiani and Enrico Azzimonti – break onto the international scene.

However, it now increasingly frequent for young Italians to be forced to go it alone, albeit with some logical and fascinating exceptions such as that of the Padiglione Italia. Situated right in the heart the Zona Ventura Lambrate – an increasingly trendy European design enclave in Milan that is pushing the boundaries between art and design – this label embraces the work of nine independent design studios that decided to join forces and rent a shared space last December.

"The idea" – as Gio Tirotto explains – "was partly to take advantage of the Furniture Fair to look for new companies and show products that best convey the way we work." Nearly all from Milan or its environs, 4P1B, Alessandro Zambelli, Alhambretto, Chiara Moreschi, CTRLZAK, Gio Tirotto, Giorgio Biscaro, en&is and Studiocharlie they are presenting a number of previously unseen objects, mostly prototypes that they want to move into mass production.

"Padiglione Italia started out with ironical intent and total respect for the work done by the Ventura organisers, which we adore, but it is totally independent. It was right to have an Italian presence, an island in the Dutch sea", adds Alessandro Zambelli.

The result is an attractive, interesting and good quality collective portrait in which the objects are all mixed up, in an anything but personalist approach and where everyone successfully highlights their own professional qualities.

17 – 22 April 2012
Padiglione Italia
Via Privata Oslavia 1, Milan