Fuorisalone and Milan design week takes place at venues across Milan from April 12 to 17 2016. Milano Design Week, the top international designevent, with more than 2,000 exhibitors, makes Milan the world’s centre of design andcreativity. The Fuorisalone animated the Milan Design Week, premiering the latest trends for the forthcoming year and heralding a tidal wave of events, exhibitions and presentations, enhancing, once again, the central role of the city on topics such as the culture of design and the importance of the Made in Italy worldwide.

Milan Design Week, one of the most important events related to the world of design and architecture at international level. As the most important event in the world related to design and furniture, Fuorisalone is the set of events distributed in different areas of Milan. Fuorisalone 2016 with more events and more areas popping up around the city in the ultimate celebration of Design. Be amazed by the amount of effort that goes into producing everything during the week, from each individual product, to group shows, events, installations and ingenious brand extensions.

Milan’s Fuorisalone is a fluid entity in continuous expansion, flourishing each year in April with the leading trends in design and mapping out the most interesting areas of the city. The flamboyant festival with more than a thousand events in well-established design districts. Fuorisalone sees Milan’s showrooms, galleries and 19th-century palazzos taken over by installations, events, and parties for a six-day celebration of design, beauty, and innovation. All told, around 1,500 Fuorisalone events are scattered throughout the city this year.

Fuorisalone was first created in the 80’s as the Salone del Mobile with events and evening soirees, thanks to the of companies working in the furnishing and industrial design sectors. Currently, it is expanding into many related sectors including automotive, technology, telecommunications, art, fashion and food. Every year, in April, Salone and Fuorisalone define the Milan Design Week, the most important event in the world for design. The entire episode of the weeklong celebration is referred to as Milan Design Week, an event engaging the entire city, from Rho to Piazza Duomo.

Fuorisalone is the official guide to the event. Istitutionally recognised and supported, it has also been the reference point for the Interareas project, ordered by Milan City Council in the sphere of the ‘Milano Creativa’ programme which aims to share the requests of the different staff involved in the Design Week, since 2014. Fuorisalone is a communication platform which offers a system of support to companies, agencies, private people or associations for the conception, creation and promotion of events during the Design Week.

Fuorisalone is a tool that talks about the events of the Milan Design Week, experiencing them at first hand, bringing facts and key players to the fore against the background of a city that lives changing situations rotating around the design and creativity worlds for a week. During the Design Week, Fuorisalone evokes the atmosphere of a week in which Milan changes guise, the design capital is presented to its community through the form of the event par excellence. The aim of Fuorisalone is the promotion of design as an event, performance and installation in the urban fabric.

Fuorisalone 2016 has been an incredible success throughout Milan Design Week. It has provided the most exciting brands and artists, and their presentation of the latest trends and luxurious products. Selected as stages for a truly variegated, stimulating and multifaceted narrative, in terms of culture, trends, technological research, materials. To respond to the growing demand for improvement of our quality of life. Whether the focus is on the city or the individual dwelling, on the present or an ecosustainable, high-performance future.

For one week, Milan was transformed into an open gallery, with historical palazzos and museums, public places and little hidden gems welcoming design aficionados from the world over. It has established a necessary bridge between artists and attendees, creating a vibe of memorable networking. The city is full of design and events, inside palaces, courtyards, buildings, piazzas, museums, abandoned factories, galleries, showrooms and other locations, organized in zones or districts – Durini, San Babila, Quadrilatero, Magenta, 5vie, Porta Venezia, Porta Vittoria, Tortona, Ventura-Centrale, Bovisa, Triennale, Brera, Isola and Porta Nuova…

The Fuorisalone fills the entire city with all things design and makes it the mecca of design for a week. There are design installations, parties and events. The Fuorisalone is sure to make any design addict’s heart beat a little faster… There are pop up design installations and exhibitions in old warehouses, historic buildings as well as traditional residential buildings. Sometimes you may stumble across the most amazing exhibitions in the most unexpected places.

The Design Experience has become a fundamental rendezvous for anyone in Milan during Design Week, the countless exclusive events dedicated to design in all its forms filled with the city. Fuorisalone has given the opportunity to attend incredible events and exhibitions, where you can absorb incredible art installations all over the city of Milan. The plethora of installations, immersive experiences and exhibition itineraries breaching the borders where design and its collateral worlds meet, blend and overlap.

Milan Design Week 2016 presented a much calmer colour palette featuring many neutrals and rather earthy and subdued colours. Vintage and retro has been replaced by the industrial look, which has become particularly popular in kitchen and bathroom design. Industrial style faucets, surfaces imitating rustic wood and concrete along with lots of beige, grey and black were omnipresent.

In furniture design, mostly soft colours and natural materials, such as wood, metal, leather and marble, often featuring creative texture and patterns. Marble, one of the oldest and most traditional building materials has founds its way (back) into modern contemporary design. The versatility of the material seems endless and no matter how modern the shape it always oozes a calm elegance.

Texture has become an important design element and can be found in a wide range. Textures as well as patterns are popular in wallpaper, tiles and even on furniture surfaces and there were many patterned area rugs with very creative designs. Many patterns are inspired by folklore and ethnic cultures from around the world.

Design Districts
The events of Fuorisalone are spread all over Milan, but are concentrated in some main areas.

Brera Design District
Discover the new Brera Experience. The best way to discover and get to know the district’s places and secrets. Brera Design District also features a selection of the best commercial activities, i.e. those that best represent the identity of this historic district of Milan between design, lifestyle, food, art and culture. The Brera Design District offers, as always, a large number of events that animate the neighborhood and which alternate with the many design showrooms hosted here.

Brera Design District attracts the largest number of events and is the most visited and most representative district of the Fuorisalone. Born with the 2010 edition, the Brera Design Week has been able to increase over the years the number and quality of the events it hosts, for many, Fuorisalone means Brera and Brera Design Week is the reference platform, open to collaboration with companies and designers thanks to dedicated project formats.

Brera has the charm of the Milan art district and has a somewhat Parisian, bohemian personality. When you stroll through its streets, especially in April during the Fuorisalone, you can breathe an extravagant, young and international atmosphere. Brera is an iconic place. It has always been the bohemian place in Milan par excellence, where you can breathe that artsy atmosphere, thanks also to the Academy and the studios of photographers and painters. Now Brera is increasingly linked to design and we find that this passage has respected the creative and special soul of the neighborhood, indeed it has brought new life.

Start from the “ancient heart of Brera”, represented by the pedestrian area of via Fiori Chiari, via Formentini and via Madonnina. Lose yourself among antiques, modern antique shops, exclusive shops and historic bars. Here, in via Fiori Chiari 18, Dedar presents the new textile wall coverings. In via Formentini 9 (in front of the deconsecrated church of S. Carpoforo) the Paola Sorio Luxury Design Atelier brand makes its debut, specialized in the creation of furniture and accessories between art and design characterized by a very high quality craftsmanship.

The Brera Design District, with the sponsorship of Comune di Milano – Assessorato Cultura, Moda e Design (Culture, Fashion and Design Division), houses 152 events, special projects as well as cultural initiatives. The ambassadors of this year’s Brera Design District are Chiara Luzzana, with the project “The Sound of City”, Matteo Thun and Dimore Studio with the designers Emiliano Salci and Britt MorAn. The theme is Designing is Listening, it comes from the debate with the artist Chiara Luzzana and Paolo Ferrarini allowing to identify the act of listening as a metaphor, the founding principle of a design and creative project.

The Design lectures award 2016 is been given to Giorgia Lupi, Italian information designer who has been working in New York for many years. “Sleepless night” of the district, the Brera Design Night will take place Friday 15th April with extended opening hours for all the showrooms and a series of special events to enliven the district.

The Mall Porta Nuova, new important location inside the Brera Extra area of the Brera Design District is an event organised by MADE Eventi, a company managed by FederlegnoArredo. Innovation for life. The individual as main focus of the Valcucine project. Every kitchen is designed focusing on the individual and all his needs, on the occasion of the Salone del Mobile, Valcucine displays new versions of their latest collection, Genius Loci, as well as many new finishings. Valcucine Milano Brera – corso G. Garibaldi 99.

Fenix NTM by Arpa Industriale: Iconic Re-naissance Design Inside the open gallery of the Pinacoteca di Brera, reinterprets a selection of design “icons” through a storytelling of timeless projects. Pinacoteca di Brera, Upper-deck open gallery, via Brera 28. Florim announces the relaunch of the brand CEDIT, Ceramiche d’Italia synonym of creativity, elegance and aesthetic research. Forobuonaparte14/N.

Brera Design Apartment is the new way of conceiving a showroom. A private space in one of the most characteristics courtyards of the Brera Design District, between via Palermo 1 and via Solferino 11. 100 sqm, 4 volumes with historical finishings design a typical Milanese interior able to house events, meetings, expositions selected or produced by the Brera Design District in an exclusive place that shows a different way of presenting and communicating design. Davide Groppi, with the poetic approach characterising his work, designed and produced the lighting system of the space, while Bulthaup proposed for the apartment its B2 kitchen system, which perfeclty fits the place’s need for versatility.

Porta Venezia Design District
Porta Venezia In Design, the fuorisalone circuit that combines design and art with the architectural and decorative heritage of the Liberty style. A Milan itinerary for the Design Week to combine design & art, food & wine with Liberty Architectu re herit age. PORTA VENEZIA IN DESIGN is an itinerary divided into ‘three’: showrooms, stores and companies featuring new design and art, the food & wine itinerary, which finds space in some selected bars and restaurants, guided tours of the Liberty facades, organized in collaboration with FAI – Italian Environment Fund.

The area of Porta Venezia. The idea of this circuit, is to highlight points include design and furnishing, hospitality and leisure, with good food and wine, architectural firms, workshops that highlight the artisan aspect, sometimes ‘hidden’ in courtyards, others on the road. Also the cultural aspect, which highlights the architectural angle, revealing the attraction has not been accessible for years. Visitors could enter to admire this secret location, magnificent and rich of art deco, hosting the VESTAE exhibition during the design week.

This year we also embed two important museums of the area : PAC and GAM. They are all places and treasures to discover, also along the year, that ‘live’ in this area of excellent and qualified activities related to design, craftsmanship, food and wine.

Interesting new entries in the area – passing through an important transformation in the recent years – are: the international reality as SOTHEBY’S, moved to Palazzo Serbelloni (Corso Venezia 16); BIVIO MILANO doubles the ‘milanese presence’ by opening the new in Via Lambro, where houses, during the Design Week, Cristina Prinetti ‘onetwothree’ transformable seat; the two Labs – WAX MAX, which highlights the African Textile Experience and STUDIO PICONE ROMA that revised the artist’s heritage, in an inner court, Via Nino Bixio 27; the kaleidoscopic space STAMBERGA (inner court, Via Melzo 3) that combines the world of photography, design, books and jewels.

Novelty in the food itinerary is V3RAW, a space offering balanced organic food ingredients (salads, soups, yogurt, extracts and smoothies) in Via Spallanzani; among others, remain Hic Enoteche 2.0, Casa Mia, Pastificio&Bistrot Brambilla.

Santambrogio Design District area
Zona Santambrogio is one of the youngest districts of the Fuorisalone scene. Zona Santambrogio is one of the city’s most important areas, from an historical, artistic and cultural point of view, including the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio which will host viU – Vision of you and Flora et Decora exhibitions, Santa Maria delle Grazie, the Vigne di Leonardo, the Science and Technology Museum, the Achille Castiglioni Foundation, the Franco Albini Foundation and Spazio Rossana Orlandi.

Inside the official Zone Map of Santambrogio 2016, some of the designer showrooms of excellence as Actual Spotti, C & C, Kitchen, Immaginaria, Design Republic, the new SPAZIO MOSSMANIA and other stores selected for design and shopping.

In the heart of Milan, in the fascinating garden of the headquarters of the Santambrogio Design District, Eat Urban, the Design Week Street Food Festval, the open air restaurant of the Fuorisalone, also come alive. A selection of the best street food on wheels between apecars and vintage vehicles, positioned between trees and paths, offering Italian and international gourmet dishes. Every day it was possible to have breakfast, brunch, lunch, aperitif and dinner. Eat Urban was the ideal place to eat during the week of the Milan Fuorisalone.

Zona Santambrogio Design District for Milan Design Week 2016, in its fourth edition, selects and promotes events, exhibitions and the best shops in the District, including Sant’Ambrogio Square, Piazzale Baracca, Cadorna, De Amicis and Ticinese. In its headquarters in a former convent in via San Vittore 49, in Zona Santambrogio, DOUTDESign will host in 2016 the Next Design Innovation exhibition, sponsored by Region Lombardy and the Polytechnic of Milan – Department of Design: 21 prototypes of young designers defying the future of design planning.

Region Lombardy and Milan’s Polytechnic – Department of Design, showcase Next Design Innovaton in the Headquarters of DOUTDESign: the exhibition brings together twenty interactive prototypes of designers under 35, who explore new types of products and tell of the unusual relationship between design and new technologies. The prototypes range from control devices for the technical equipment of houses, to lightings and interactive furnishings, from long lasting technology, to smart devices for the city and the new mobility. These technologies are developed by designers coming from Lombard schools and universities, selected by the board of Next Design Innovation, and from ELISAVA School of Barcelona.

Also showcased at the headquarters in via San Vittore 49, is a selection of other international design exhibitions and in particular, an installation curated by the Master in Service Design at Milan Polytechnic and POLI.design, to show design services that make life easier, and the service design system inspired by the themes of the XXI edition of the Milan Triennal, which will open on April 2nd with the title “21st Century. Design After Design. “In the heart of Milan, in the charming garden of the headquarters of Santambrogio Design District, Eat Urban, the Design Week Street Food Festival, will be the open-air restaurant of the Fuorisalone.

For the second year, Womade will follow the artistic direction of evening events. The creative network, based in Milan, has been organizing several cultural productions, generating value through editorial projects, collaborations and events involving thousands of artists and creative talents. Womade proposes each evening a different event, and will attract attention to different areas of Design: fashion, photography, video art, illustration and music.

Zona Santambrogio sustains Milan Design Award, the award for best design installation during Milan design Week, now in its sixth edition: from 2016 it has become a project shared by Milan’s Fuorisalone committee. Born as a choral event for the protection and communication of events during the Fuorisalone, the committee consists of Brera Design District, 5 Vie art + design, Elita – Enjoy Living Italy, Milan Space Makers, Porta Venezia in Design, Sarpi Bridge Oriental Design Week, Superstudio Group, Tortona Design Week, Ventura Lambrate and Zona Santambrogio.The project of Milan Design Award was conceived and coordinated by Elita-Enjoy Living Italy, in collaboration with Fuorisalone.it and IED Milano, and supported by the Municipality of the City of Milan.

5VIE in Historic center of Milan
5VIE was born as a territorial marketing project linked to an area of ​​the historic center of Milan, the Cinque Vie: an area rich in history and culture, where among the remains of imperial Rome, early Christian basilicas and Renaissance courtyards you can still find artisan workshops of the highest level, as well as refined boutiques and art and design galleries. Thanks to the uniqueness of the curatorial program and the continually expanding success of previous editions, 5VIE art+design is now recognized internationally as an important new hub of cutting-edge design.

The name “5VIE Art+Design” gathers the three main concepts of the project: history, culture and innovation. With a strong brand identity and new communication strategies, the area hosts a series of cultural initiatives in occasion of the most important creative events of Milan, in collaboration with PS and Nascent Design agency, as for visual identity.

5VIE, are Via Santa Marta, Via Santa Maria Podone, Via Santa Maria Fulcorina, Via Bocchetto and Via del Bollo. This district has become wider but compact at the same time, it is characterized by Roman roots and Milanese features, archaeological remains, beautiful cloisters, modern architecture and new areas that are being renovated.

Thanks to the work of the past few years for building a strong brand identity and new communication strategies, a bunch of streets is now a urban project of international interest. This year, with a special focus on one-of-a-kind pieces, art design, and the cross- contamination among the various arts, aims to build on this growing success and embrace experimentation more openly than ever and to cultivate an even more international presence. This year’s goal: consolidate our reputation as a cultural reference point,bringing together plurality of thought and international heterogeneity.

Working as always in close contact with curators and designers and concentrating on clusters of creativity, 5VIE is increasingly establishing itself as a meeting place for generating connections between different areas, investing in research, in the selection of projects, and in their final implementation. As such, our identity as a true “integrated design district” becomes crystal clear.

During the third edition, 5VIE district boasts an increased number of high quality events, by paying attention to the strong cultural matrix, the artisanal projects and the purpose of rediscovering central areas that the majority of people don’t know. The councillor for Trade, Productive Activities and Tourism, Territorial Marketing, Services Civic, Franco D’Alfonso declared: “Thanks to the collaboration between Public Administration and 5VIE trade and cultural operators, this district gained international interest, by promoting culture and creativity.

Themed itineraries
Itineraries that include the events of Design Week related to the most important themes of this edition.

Tortona Design Week
Tortona Design Week is a communication project promoting over 180 events in the renewed Tortona design circuit. Partners of the initiative are Associazione Tortona Area Lab , BASE Milano , Magna Pars , Milano Space Makers , Superstudio Group, Tortona Locations . Among the 2016 events, the also Sarpi Bridge-Oriental design week.

Superstudio Più | SUPERDESIGN SHOW
SuperDesign Show focuses on research, on the extraordinary daily, on freedom of choice, on contaminations between classic and avant-garde, between industry and handcraft, between tradition and future, between simplicity and magnificence. SUPERSTUDIO is the iconic place for design in Milan, “an absolute must” (Financial Times), Tortona District’s essential milestone since 2000 and pioneer of the phenomenon of FuoriSalonein the district.

SuperDesign Show, the new Superstudio’s authorial format that continues and takes over the success of Superstudio’s previous project – the Temporary Museum for New Design -, is an event eagerly awaited all around the world, covered by many international newspapers and magazines and taken as an example of an innovative and valuable initiative worldwilde, the first stage of every visit in the Tortona District.

SuperDesign Show looks at the future. It focuses on research, on the extraordinary daily, on freedom of choice, on contaminations between classic and avant-garde, between industry and handcraft, between tradition and future, between simplicity and magnificence. 10.000 sq.m. exhibiting space, theme projects, museum-like installations, national pavilions, individual and collective exhibitions, big consolidated companies and also young innovative companies, startups, self-design and all the new trends for living and inhabiting. Lounges, meeting rooms, press office, coordinated image, wide press campaign, common areas, garden, restaurants and much more.

This year’s theme is WHITE PAGES, that implies writing together the world waiting for us tomorrow. An invitation to exhibit not only ready-to-use objects and proposals but also futuristic and experimental projects and to “narrate” them to the public with words and installations in an ideal “white page”. One single direction, a common contemporary language, that gives value national and brand identities, Italian excellences, commercial requirements, the thinking “next”, with a careful selection involving “research, quality and innovation” that have always been Superstudio’s key values.

Elita Design Week Festival
Elita Design Week Festival contributed to the thematic expansion of Milan Design Week through constant research in the contemporary music scene and a selection of innovative cultural entertainment content and models. Elita Design Week Festival preside over places without embodying a precise form, adapt to contexts, explore places, sounds, disguise themselves to change through them. A modern nomadism that is expressed through itinerant events within more or less known spaces in the city, thanks to the typical transversality of Elita who manages to create different situations each time for an ever wider community.

A unique project curated by Elita, Design Week Festival has built its identity in the last ten years, through constant research in the contemporary music scene and a selection of innovative content, flanked by a job using territories, spaces and places by promoting specific-thinked activities. The 2016 Design Week Festival presents a program integrated with the one of Design week, offering a reference point every day for the inevitable entertainment proposition that has always characterized the DWF.

Site-specific projects will be dedicated to different topics for each event in the individual days of the Festival, hosting international artists in the typical innovation that characterizes the line up of DWF. The agenda of events for ten years, designed and reported in the Party Official Design Week and officially included in the network of the Fuori Salone, will start April 13 with a Block Party on Navigli, and it will be in partnership with WIKO and BECK’S: a completely free street party, with the console in via Corsico, and it will remind the memorable event September 2013 for the inauguration of ElitaBar.

DWF 11 will take the mutation side of Elita and continues to display in different places of the city, becoming the moving and secret soul of Design Week. Two events that will be disclousure club of the new season in Milan, the Wall. Mind Against will play a set throughout the night of Thursday, and David August will host his amazing show, on Saturday night.

On Friday night, at Fabrique, you will attend the longest night of entertainment, with the celebration of Diynamic and its special showcase. Among the most awaited moments of the Festival, the 4 hours back to back between Daphni and Floating Ploints will take place in a misterious venue in via Orobia and it will take the shape of another block party, on Saturday evening.

The closing party will be on Sunday, the appointment of the sixth edition of Milano Design Award, the prestigious award dedicated to the best exhibition projects of Fuori Salone. After this, there will be the party, in collaboration with Red Bull Music Academy , in one of the most evocative venue of city: BASE.

Interni – Open Borders
On the occasion of Fuorisalone 2016, INTERNI will be in three location. From 11 to 23 April, three are in fact the places of the city that will host the exhibition Open Borders. The usual Università degli Studi di Milano, Orto Botanico in Brera, and for the first time, the Velasca Tower (home of Audi City Lab, that presents Untaggable Future, a laboratory of ideas about: people, city, light, energy).

The theme are exploration and overcoming disciplinary boundaries, which will be represented through a series of interactive installations and exhibitions and with the usual quality where they have taught us during the past editions. The searching fields touched multiple areas, from cinema to architecture, from digital and sustainability.

The exhibition Casetta del Viandante (The Home of the Wayfarer) curated by Marco Ferreri, one of the installations of Interni Open Borders, has been selected as an official exhibition of the 21st Milan Triennale ’21st Century. Design After Design’. Università Statale becomes one of the official sites of the 21st Milan Triennale. Casetta del Viandante will remain open to the public until 12 September.

Sarpi Bridge_Oriental
Sarpi Bridge_Oriental Design Week was born in 2013 in Milan thanks to the interest and curiosity that the people feel more and more for the design and art offering by East. Sarpi Bridge_Oriental Design Week aims to create a bridge between East and West, between City and City, between fuorisalone and fuorisalone proposing design, art design, research and creativity. It lasts not only 6 days of Milan Design Week but all the year in order to create cultural and economic opportunities. The district that gave birth to it is Sarpi, a historic district of Milan of great charm, but Sarpi Bridge_Oriental Design Week is very dynamic, always in moving looking for new places where to build bridges.

Milan Design Award
The Milano Design Award is back, an event that since 2011 has been selecting the best exhibition projects of the Fuori Salone prizing the most innovative ones and those able to promote a creative dialogue between product and setup, brand and designer. Milan Design Award, produced by elita, realized in partnership with Fuorisalone, is the competition that rewards the events of the Milan Design Week. The goal of the Milan Design Award is to reward the most unique experiences offered to the visitors, identify the aesthetic expressions that characterize contemporary design trends and highlight, through the selection of the projects, the new socio-cultural phenomena.

The purpose of the Milano Design Award is to select, through an international jury, the best exhibition project of the Fuori Salone. Many are the criteria leading to the choice of the winner, among which are concept, technology, storytelling and engagement, which represent some of the awarded categories. Among the novelties of this year is the presence of four new awards: Press Choice, assigned by a jury composed by representatives of the international press, The Unicorn for the most innovative and disruptive installation and two connected Lifetime Achievement awards (designer and company).

Create and organised by elita, realized in partnership with Fuorisalone, Istituto Europeo di Design and Valverde and sponsored by Comune di Milano, since last year the initiative is also promoted by the biggest companies linked to the Fuorisalone: 5VIE art+design, Brera Design District , elita – enjoy living italy, Milano Space Makers, Porta Venezia in Design, Tortona Design Week, Triennale di Milano, Ventura Projects and Zona SantAmbrogio.