Since it’s debut over fifty years ago, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile has become the world’s premier design event, bringing together the brightest stars in the design world along with rising talent to present new work from around the globe. Luminaire traverses the Milan fair every year to seek out the best in contemporary design and share our discoveries with our clients, our friends and the public. This year we reported our findings in real time, reporting back to our followers on Facebook and Twitter, as well as updating our website with slideshows each day. Now that the events are over, we would like to revisit just a few of the designs that made the 2012 Salone a truly remarkable experience.
Luminaire exchanged ideas with close friends like Ingo Maurer, Patricia Urquiola, Claudio Silvestrin and Vincent Van Duysen, Antonio Citterio, Naoto Fukaswa, Studio Kairos, Ross Lovegrove and also conversed with a number of emerging designers. Through our sponsorship of the Design Report Awards each year, we seek to engage up-and-coming designers, supporting them with much-deserved publicity and funding for future projects. This year we were particularly impressed with honorable mention recipients Studio Vit and their Marble Lights collection, in which delicate light bulbs floated like bubbles underneath short, yet weighty, marble cylinders.
We also enjoyed getting to know Oki Sato of the Japanese studio Nendo, whose Still & Sparkling exhibition invoked quiet, everyday moments with hand-blown glass objects. While no two pieces are exactly the same, each was equally enchanting. Nendo’s black&black exhibition for K% inspired a meditation on fundamental elements. With no distractions of varied colors or materials, structural elements became one, as with the Melt chair where the backrest, arm and front legs emerge from one continuous curve.
One of the most stimulating exhibitions of the year was Paola Lenti’s Keys of Colour. Her indoor and outdoor collections, saturated in lustrous hues, curiously danced against the backdrop of a 15th-century monastery. The Ingo Maurer installation also took our breath away, especially the 20-foot long green wall illuminated with insects in an exhibit flush with surprising takes on similar motifs and new prototypes. Argentinian designer Dante Bonuccelli’s Aline from Alias also attracted our attention this year. Linear and light, slim and simple, this bookshelf gracefully transforms any space with subtle elegance.
All in all, this breathtaking combination of events, shows, and fairs provided an opportunity to reflect on design, industry, creativity and on culture. We invite you to take a visual tour through our daily slideshows of the 2012 Salone.
May 2012
