Twelve key installations from Milan design week 2024
As Milan design week continues, we have rounded up the key installations from the year's biggest design event, featuring some of the world's best-known brands and designers.
With this year's event seemingly returning to pre-pandemic levels of activity, Milan has been packed with installations created by some of the world's best-known designers and architects for leading brands.
The Dezeen team, which has been reporting live from the event, has selected 12 of the most impactful and intriguing installation from the event.
They are works created by Sabine Marcelis, India Mahdavi and MAD for brands including Google, Kohler, Amazon and Porsche, along with a debut from film director David Lynch and even a bright orange toilet.
Read on for the 12 key installations from this year's Milan design week:
Making Sense of Color by Chromasonic and Google
Technology brand Google collaborated with research studio Chromasonic to create a kaleidoscopic maze of semi-transparent screens lit from above.
The installation was designed to simulate the experience of having synesthesia – a perceptual phenomenon where people experience one sense through another, for example hearing colours.
Read more about Making Sense of Color ›
Monumental glass portals, some as tall as 4.8 metres, have been erected in the 15th-century Palazzo Isimbardi as part of an installation by Czech glassmaker Lasvit, designed to mirror the surrounding architecture.
Each pane is embossed with a different abstract pattern created via a range of eclectic mediums including bubble wrap, crumpled pieces of paper and the fingers of art director Maxim Velcovsky, who designed the installation.
They were realised using the company's fused glass technique, which involves imprinting the desired pattern on a bed of sand, which according to Velcovsky is then fired in a custom-built "jumbo kiln", effectively turning the glass into a "canvas that you can draw on".
Terminal 02 by Samuel Ross for Kohler
Much like a throne, Samuel Ross's bright-orange brutalist Formation 02 toilet takes pride of place at the centre of this installation, created in collaboration with bathroom brand Kohler.
To reach it, visitors make their way through a network of giant industrial pipes that snake their way across the courtyard of the Palazzo Del Senato – sometimes closed and sometimes open to reveal the water they carry.
It hopes to draw attention to the incredible yet often under appreciated feats of industrial engineering necessary to deliver water across vast bodies of land. "It's such a novelty that we take for granted now," Ross told Dezeen.
Design Space AlUla by Paul Cournet and Sabine Marcelis
Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis and architect Paul Cournet have created a lounge celebrating the culture and design of Saudi Arabian region AlUla at the Mediateca di Santa Teresa in Brera.
The scenography includes a massive overhead light based on the lights in AlUla, which face down to prevent light pollution and a massive seating area designed by Hall Haus.
It also includes a series of collectible design pieces curated by Samer Yamani that use materials found locally in the Saudi Arabian region.
A Thinking Room by David Lynch
Film director David Lynch has revealed a talent for furniture design at tradeshow Salone del Mobile, where he created the A Thinking Room installation, two identical rooms within pavilions hung with red velvet drapes.
Inside the rooms, a central wooden chair with mystical metal rods coming out of it takes centre stage. It is surrounded by photos and videos in specially designed frames and sits on a floor with a wave pattern.
A Thinking Room was designed to be a relaxing space for visitors to Salone del Mobile, who can immersive themselves in its Lynchian atmosphere to escape the hustle and bustle of the tradeshow.
Read more about A Thinking Room ›
DIURNO by Panter & Tourron and Davide Rapp
Lausanne based design studio Panter & Tourron has transformed the interior of a Milanese apartment into a "speakeasy-style secret lounge” that aims to question both the past and future of the living room.
Visitors are invited to lounge on a modular yellow sofa-bed hybrid, in a room surrounded by purple curtains and other experimental furniture and lighting designs.
From here, they can watch a series of motage-style video works by artist Davide Rapp, including one featuring hundreds of clips from Italian movies where the sofa has a key role in the narrative.
The Imperfect Home by Inga Sempé and Studio A/C
A standout installation at the Triennale Milano takes the form of an entire home, filled almost entirely with furniture, lighting and homeware designed by French designer Inga Sempé and designed in collaboration with Milan-based Studio A/C.
As the title, The Imperfect Home, suggests, this is no show home. It is instead filled with the mess of everyday life; there are personal objects everywhere, hair on the sink, dirty coffee cups and hanging laundry.
The aim was to create the sense that the house had been "lived in right up until moments before the exhibition opened".
Amazing Walk by MAD for Amazon
Installed in the Cortile della Farmacia courtyard of the University of Milan, the 7.5-metre-tall pavilion, which has no internal column, was designed by MAD founder Ma Yansong to recall the shape of a mountain.
Clad in a semi-reflective, transparent skin, the pavilion was designed "as a space of connection" and is surrounded by mist at night.
The Art of Dreams by Numen/For Use for Porsche
Design collective Numen/For Use created a netted installation for automobile brand Porsche, which was informed by the brand's 1960s black and white houndstooth pattern.
Described as "an inhabitable utopia", visitors to the installation were invited to "climb inside and investigate the suspended landscape".
Read more about The Art of Dreams ›
The Fireplace by Diébédo Francis Kéré for Next125
Burkinabè architect Diébédo Francis Kéré collaborated with German kitchen brand Next125 to design a circular pavilion made from spruce logs at this year's Milan design week.
Exhibited at Superstudio Events, the installation features arched openings and a dome-like structure that is organised around a sleek kitchen island from Next125's collection.
Read more about The Fireplace ›
The Topography of Material by Hermès
Fashion brand Hermès went to the ground with its exhibition The Topography of Material – a patterned floor made up of different reclaimed materials including stone, clay and volcanic rocks.
The brand also showcased pieces from its archive next to new pieces that were made using the same material or otherwise had a connection to the older designs.
Read more about The Topography of Material ›
Archaeology of Tiles by India Mahdavi for Alternative Artefacts Danto
French designer India Mahdavi has created eight 3D ladders wrapped in tiles in this installation for newly launched Japanese brand Alternative Artefacts Danto.
As a spin-off of Danto, one of Japan's oldest mass-produced tile manufactuers, the brand has taken over a series of room inside an eighth-century former residence in the 5VIE design district.
Leaned up against walls and extending out to the terrace, Mahdavi's tile-covered ladders feature bold colours and contemporary patterns that playfully contrast with the period details.