The 64th edition of the international furniture fair, Salone del Mobile, welcomed 316,342 visitors to Milan from across 167 countries. This year, the fair continued to evolve itself as more than a trade show; in addition to its biannual spotlight on kitchen and baths, the fair introduced a section dedicated to collectible design, Salone Raritas, as well as the unveiling of Salone Contract 2027, a curatorial masterplan designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA.
As such, foot traffic was up this year compared to the previous year by 4.5 percent. Large crowds and the expo halls’s never-ending footprint task designers and architects with creating a booth that stands out but also navigates the noise and chaos of the exhibition. This year’s stand-out booths created interiors within interiors, a place to shed the mayhem outside and step into a miniature world. The installation offered the opportunity to showcase products in context, versus as isolated objects. While booths may be fleeting, the following were certainly not forgetful.
The booth for Audio Copenhagen shields itself from the surrounding chaos through soft curtains (Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen)
Audo Copenhagen by Norm Architects
Designed by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen of Norm Architects, in collaboration with art director Christian Møller Andersen, Audo Copenhagen’s booth reinterprets Italy’s colonnades and the disciplined geometry of 1930s modernism. The result is a serene place to catch a breath. Soft drapery faces the nearly 1,500-square-foot lot, divvied up by rhythmic columns and walls. The space flows from room to room until it opens onto the rear and focal point: The Grand Cafe, a functional hospitality setting, furnished with Audo’s minimal yet craft-led pieces, that successfully show off the product is a newer environment for the brand.
The booth will be dismantled and transported to Zambia to become a public bathroom (Luca A. Caizzi)
QuadroDesign by Giacomo Moor
QuadroDesign’s booth combats the wastefulness of trade shows and then some. The booth, designed by Giacomo Moor, is composed of a lightweight timber frame held together by special aluminum joints. The system creates a modular grid that can easily be disassembled, reconfigured or expanded on any of its four sides. It’s not just a concept but a concrete action. After the fair, the booth will be taken down and transported to Masala, Zambia where it will become the town’s first public bathroom, mainly servicing women and children. The booth-turned-bathroom, created in partnership with lighting partner, Platek, cleverly creates zones that show off QuadroDesign’s taps that will later be converted to six to eight toilet stalls, showers, and baby changing stations.
FormaFantasma designed a rectilinear booth for B&B Italia (Courtesy B&B Italia)
B&B Italia by Formafantasma
B&B Italia marks its return from a 25-year hiatus from the fair with an architectural booth by FormaFantasma. Eschewing staged vignettes, the design relies on stripped-back decor and form to cohere product and exhibition design. The stand is conceived as a coherent architectural system that hints at a domestic atmosphere without the on-the-nose reproduction. A coffered ceiling filters a zenithal light while marble partitions structure the space. Wood and cotton fiber carpets further elevate objects on display without overshadowing them.
Studio met met designed a monochrome booth for Established & Sons (Frank Stelitano)
Established & Sons by Studio met met
Step into the tilted blue booth of Established & Sons. Here, the Arnhem, Netherlands–based design studio, Studio met met, crafted a stand where each object is properly elevated. In some cases, that’s literal. Two sloping diagonal walls act as display where Established & Son’s new 3D-molded veneer chair by Nathan Martell sits atop. These partitions also structure the space to cohere the brand’s other introductions, including a lighting collection which rests within the walls and along one side of it. It also allows visitors to arrive at the brand’s collaboration with Tongue & Groove, a flooring system that reinterprets the square grid system for solid oak.
Imagery of New Zealand’s forest surround the booth (Courtesy Fisher & Paykel)
Fisher & Paykel by Calvi Brambilla and Partners and Dean Poole
The 1,477-square-foot stand for Fisher & Paykel operated as a portal to New Zealand, or Aotearoa to the Māori people. Under the creative direction of Dean Poole, the cofounder of design studio Alt Group, and exhibition design by Milan-based architects Calvi Brambilla and Partners, the booth is surfaced in floor-to-ceiling photography of New Zealand’s forest. The chirps of local birds and wildlife hum in the distance. Two materials continue to draw from the landscape and where the appliance manufacturers call home: tōtara wood and basalt. The materials abstract the appliances, including the new State of the Art Collection, while realizing them in new codes of luxury and the site-specific context of the brand.
