What can you do when Berlin gives you -2 degrees in April? We decided to give ourself a break from this great city with the ass-cold (free translation of the German term arschkalt) heart and start the season of Spring properly while escaping to Milan and visit the Milan Design Week. Sounds pretty spoiled, huh?
Well to be fair and square, Milan Design Week is a posh event only in certain ways. First of all most exhibitions and events are for free and without any guestlist involved. Secondly, flights from Berlin to Milan are more than affordable even close to Design Week. But mostly I think the event is so enjoyable and down to earth because the whole city with all inhabitants are curious about it and love to spend time visiting it. So you might enjoy the giant cockring designed by Hermes next to the Italian grannies from the neighborhood, or you might be playing in the playground of Toilet Paper Magazine or Marni with toddlers and battle for the best selfie poses with Italian high school kids. And I can promise you, you won’t win that battle.
So we were spoiled with good weather, nice Aperitivos and lots of playful design but were kind enough to come back to Berlin with lots of beautiful photos by Alicia Kassebohm. So after the jump we show you our favorite design highlights and trends we picked up there.
Playground for Adults and Kids
The installations of design week know how to give the term gamification a new meaning. A very literal one, in some exhibitions that really looked like playgrounds. Certainly, my favorite playful design spots where the Henrik Vibskov curation for Mindcraft, the Ceaserstone collaboration with Jaime Hayon and the magical white carousel by Le Broom.
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Garden party Deluxe
#Plantlove everywhere you go. From the little cactus family on the kitchen table to the hanging gardens in the living room. Many installations used living plants to make the interior design maybe more Instagram-worthy? In any case, we appreciated the green touch of the Louis Vuitton Exhibition Objects Nomad or the beautiful garden installation at Rosanna Orlandi.
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Deceleration of Time
The time is ticking like a bomb. Especially when our smartphone is incessantly telling us that we are missing out on something. I loved the artistic performance Slice of Time for OFFICINE PANERAI by design genius Oki Santo and his art studio nendo. By transforming “time” into “length”, Nendo offers an original view of the concept of time. Piece by piece time is sliced in different thick pieces of plastic material. Even more intense in the fantastic scenario of an old palazzo.
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Protest is the new Brunch
By far our favorite event that took us by surprise was the Design Pride. A fun and a crazy parade of design students and brands that want to open the concept of design to a broader audience. The founder of this event Stefano Seletti describes it as follows: “Design is democracy, freedom, joy; that’s why we want to celebrate it with a PRIDE that involves the designers, the brands, bringing them even closer to the people. The party is open to everyone, young, old, children: in short, anyone who wants to celebrate the freedom to experiment, to develop their ideas, even when they seem crazy to most – an ode to diversity, independence of thought, creativity”. We say: Bravo for this bold and fun event that ended up in a giant rave in front of the Stock Exchange market.
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Minimalism to the Max
I would never think that I would ever queue for 2 hours just to see an exhibition made out of 90% white objects. But there I was standing in front of the nendo exhibition for Jill Sander called Invisible Outlines and waiting together with the rest of the design-hungry city. And it was worth the wait. Because even though I have never been such a fan of minimalism I have to appreciate the beauty and artfulness of this exhibition redefining the concepts the outlines of everyday objects.
