Milano Design City is the city’s quest to restart through design, a ten-day event with new projects, exhibitions and openings by local and international design players

As part of ths two-week event is the opening of Dimoremilano’s new spaces, presented through an elegant apartment in Milan’s via Solferino. Through an installation titled Solo, the works of modern masters blend with contemporary designs in an evocative dialogue between styles. Photography: Silvia Rivoltella

Earlier this year, Milan became the first European city to be hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the cancellation of all design events (including Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone). Through collective creative and entrepreneurial initiatives (such as a manifesto drafted by nine Italian furniture companies titled ’Design Doesn’t Give up’), the design community has continued to foster engaging conversations and develop new projects, a series of efforts that are now erupting in an off-season design event supported by the City of Milan and Fuorisalone. Titled Milano Design City, the two-week initiative features a series of showroom openings, launches, debates and events (both physical and digital) that very much feel like the city has re-gained its creative energy.

Brassless by Nilufar

BRASSLESS: New Accords for the Metallic Wave, is a show curated by Studio Vedèt as part of the ongoing FAR series that sees Nilufar Gallery being taken over by a generation of young designers. Set in the spaces of Nilufar Depot’s Caveau, the exhibition includes works by Odd Matter, Objects of Common Interest (pictured) and Destroyers / Builders with a special contribution by Martino Gamper. As the title suggests, the group show is a provocative stance against the ubiquitous metal that has been popping up everywhere in design (Nilufar included), celebrating material diversity.

Viale Vincenzo Lancetti, 34

Tropical Milan by Erez Nevi Pana

Erez Nevi Pana’s body work is entirely dedicated to the exploration of alternative, ethical materials that can serve our everyday manufacturing needs. After an exhibition exploring vegan design in 2018, the Israeli designer collaborated once again with Milanese curator Maria Cristina Didero to go one step further, growing his own design materials (namely, banana tress he could source fibers from). His project Tropical Milan includes a film that portrays a futuristic dystopia, a narrative in which the city becoming a jungle, and a capsule collection of three furniture pieces (a bag chair, a rocking chair and a hammock), made of banana fibre grown by Nevi Pana, that represents the designer’s optimistic reaction to that future vision.

Via Cesare Correnti, 14

1+1+1 at Assab One