Icon Magazine May 2016 Zurück Ausgabe

In our latest issue, we look at Milan's Salone del Mobile, and ask whether the city's design industry is trying to reclaim its radical past
No less than the boss of Ikea recently announced that the world, the western one at least, had reached ‘peak home furnishings’.

OK, so in the grand scheme of things an over-furnished lounge is nowhere near as apocalyptic as the idea of reaching ‘Peak Oil’. I mean, no one is likely to bomb around a desert in a death machine made of scrap metal dressed like a Burning Man reject because they couldn’t get their hands on a Billy bookcase.

But given our cluttered lives and the ecological ramifications of unbridled consumer culture, it is hardly surprising that some of us in the design world have a mildly troubled relationship with the Milan Furniture Fair. If you have ever wandered the Fieramilano’s cavernous halls filled with stuff, mainly chairs, it is pretty much guaranteed you will experience a ‘who buys this crap?’ moment. In these circumstances, it is easy to forget just how influential Italian design has been and, historically, the Salone has been pivotal to this.

Yet, after 55 years it still has the capacity to engage. This year heralds the return of the Triennale as an exhibition. Though very much framed by 1972’s seminal Italy: The New Domestic Landscape in New York, even down to its name, Rooms: Novel Living Concepts, it feels like Milan is making a genuine attempt to set the agenda again.

All will be revealed come April, but for now Icon tantilises you with a striking cover image from the upcoming exhibition courtesy of Fabio Novembre.

Words
James McLachlan

Cover image
Fabio Novembre

If you have ever wandered the Fieramilano’s cavernous halls filled with stuff, mainly chairs, it is pretty much guaranteed you will experience a ‘who buys this crap?’ moment