The Monocle Minute
On Design

This week the Monocle team heads to Milan, where the design industry has gathered to show off its latest innovations and wares in the trade halls of Salone del Mobile and beyond. We admire the restrained craftsmanship of Finnish furniture-maker Nikari, have a light-bulb moment at Euroluce, marvel at Poliform’s new outdoor collection in a 15th-century cloister complex and plenty more besides. But first, here’s Nic Monisse on why it all matters.

One brand that can be trusted to bring a touch of restrained craftsmanship to Salone del Mobile is Nikari. The Finnish furniture manufacturer was founded in 1967 and its pared-back booth at this year’s fair features a new low-slung coffee table, Centenniale, with amber iterations of the Aalto vase by fellow Finnish brand Iittala on top. In the coffee table and other pieces, Nikari doesn’t hide the natural cracks and fissures of the wood grain, rejecting the industry’s tendency to smooth over or discard timber that might be considered damaged.

“We wanted to keep these features and celebrate them as part of the design,” says Nikari’s CEO, Johanna Vuorio. “Each piece is unique and has its own character.” As well as tasteful Nordic furniture, Nikari has collaborated with Woodnotes, a Finnish textile company that it shares operations with. Together, they have released new grey and teal colourways of Woodnotes’ woven yarn carpets. As stalls compete for attention in the crowded fairground, sometimes moderation can be the loudest statement.

Nikari is in Pavilion 2 at Fiera Milano Rho for Salone del Mobile. Visit nikari.fi for more information.

In the midst of the bright stalls of Euroluce, Salone del Mobile’s dedicated lighting section, Fiat Bulb: The Edison Syndrome is an exhibition that pays creative tribute to the incandescent light bulb. It is curated by the Italian set designer Martina Sanzarello, who delves into the history of the bulbous luminaire and its representation in art and design, through a selection of light bulbs that have been turned into sculptures by designers such as Armando Testa and Kazuhiro Yamanaka. The works are displayed in cardboard boxes on a conveyor belt.

The result is a series of bulbs not hugely dissimilar from each other in concept but all unique in form, showing the variance in how light can be presented and perceived. “I love to create a sense of destabilisation,” says Sanzarello. “The idea was to create a serial environment with identical boxes in which the artworks are all at the same level. The moment the visitor gets closer and looks inside the box, that’s when they’ll catch the unique nature of every artwork.” This is a Euroluce exhibition that would make Thomas Edison proud.

‘Fiat Bulb: The Edison Syndrome’ is in Pavilion 15 at Fiera Milano Rho.

Located in Milan’s Brera Design District, House of Switzerland is a project initiated and co-led by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, and Presence Switzerland, a unit of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs that is responsible for championing the Alpine nation’s image abroad. Located at Casa Degli Artisti, House of Switzerland is showcasing a host of talent from the country with an exhibition featuring works from Swiss brands, studios and design schools; it’s also playing host to Monocle Radio’s pop-up studio during Milan Design Week. To find out more about this design-minded diplomatic outpost, we caught up with Alexandre Edelmann (pictured left), interim head of Presence Switzerland, and Pro Helvetia design specialist Marie Mayoly (pictured centre).

Tell us what people can see at House of Switzerland during Milan Design Week?
Alexandre Edelmann: When you ask people around the world about Switzerland, cheese, mountains and chocolate usually come to mind ahead of design. We’re very proud of the cheese, mountains and chocolate but Switzerland is famous for many other things too and we want to show that.

Marie Mayoly: The overarching theme that all the exhibitors at House of Switzerland are responding to is “Urgent Legacy”. We don’t pretend as a country to have all of the solutions to the problems that we face as a society because we don’t – and nobody has. But there’s a discussion going on and sometimes people don’t expect Switzerland to be part of it. We don’t know what our legacy is yet, which is why it’s urgent to build it. The people we brought here are able to do it. We have emerging studios, universities and brands showing their work. Our goal is to give visibility to our creatives and connect them to the industry.

What do you hope people will take away from a visit to House of Switzerland?
MM: We want to show the diversity of Swiss design and the solutions that we’re bringing to the table. I hope that people go home with the idea that we’re an innovative design nation and that they meet new designers, editors, buyers and investors to collaborate with.

AE: It’s pretty interesting to visit the house and see all of the emerging talents. Creative Switzerland is unexpected for some people.

Why is having a relationship with Milan’s design scene so crucial?
AE: If you want to talk about design, go to where it happens. The fact is that Milan Design Week is the one week of the year when the entire world talks about design. If the project was about cinema, we would go to Cannes or Berlin. But for design, it’s important to be in Milan.

For more from Milan and the House of Switzerland, listen to Monocle Radio across this week.

Visit House of Switzerland at Casa Degli Artisti in Milan or click here for more information.

At Fuorisalone, there can be a sense of competition over who can bag the most spectacular spot for their installations. In this respect, Italian furniture manufacturer Poliform is definitely in the running this year. The brand’s presentation, “Percezioni” (“Perceptions”), focuses on its new outdoor collection that elegantly occupies the courtyards of the Chiostri di San Simpliciano, a beautiful 15th-century cloister complex. The mood is meditative, with music composed by Berlin-based Caterina Barbieri playing from speakers and palo santo wafting in the air.

The new pieces on display include a low coffee table called Ketch, designed by Jean-Marie Massaud, and an impressive dining table, Monolith, and the Magnolia collection of sofas by Emmanuel Gallina, in a colour palette of wood tones, greys and blacks. Poliform says that these releases celebrate the connection between humans and nature. The interplay between the cloisters and the collection is spot on.

For more about Poliform at the Chiostri di San Simpliciano, visit poliform.it.

Everything about Solidnature’s Milan Design Week installation is a celebration of stone. The specialist materials company, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, regularly collaborates with Dutch design studio OMA. And it’s OMA that has designed the scenography for this year’s “Beyond the Surface” installation, lending it an architectural feel. On entering a garden off Via Cernaia in central Milan, visitors are guided down a set of beautifully lit, onyx-embossed stairs. Each step is a different shade of semi-precious stone. The basement is divided into a series of rooms that explore the lifespan of stone, from travertine and granite to onyx. Solidnature wants those who pass through the exhibition to understand every stage, from formation on the ocean floor to extraction from a quarry.

Alongside impressive, backlit stone slabs, there is a short film, audio of dripping water and even sniffing jars for those curious to get a whiff of sulphur and amber. Ascending the stairs into the garden allows visitors to see how these raw materials are turned into impressive design pieces. There’s a stunning curved bench called “The Wave” by Iran’s Bita Fayyazi and a glass-and-travertine bar and table from Rotterdam-based Sabine Marcelis. To say the installation is solid would be doing it a disservice.

Visit Solidnature at Via Cernaia 1 during Milan Design Week. Click here for more details.

Munich-based lighting brand Occhio first took part in Milan Design Week in 2007 but until now it has always had a booth at the Fiera Milano Rho. “We realised that, as our business is growing and becoming more international, something had to change,” says Florian Huber, the company’s chief products officer. This prompted Occhio to venture outside of the fair this year, choosing as its venue Villa Necchi Campiglio, a 1930s building in the heart of the city. In the gardens, the brand has set up a pavilion and café to launch its two new product families, which will be released this year and in 2024.

Inside a darkened room in the pavilion, you’ll find Coro lights, with pointed pendants in matte metal, as well as the Luna, whose patented moonlike bulb is encased in a perfect sphere of glass. “Most of our products are pretty technical,” says Huber. “This design is the first that has a more decorative aspect.” After watching a five-minute video that presents the new products, visitors step out into the flowering garden of the villa, where the contrast between Italian architecture and German engineering highlights the excellence of both.

To find out more about Occhio at Villa Necchi Campiglio, visit occhio.com.