Wallpaper* Design Issue: the Salone preview

Dear readers,

Besides assembling the panoply of products, people and presentations that marks our annual celebration of Milan’s Salone del Mobile – this year taking place 8-13 April – the Wallpaper* Design Issue underscores one of the key principles that has made Salone the world’s pre-eminent player in its field for more than 60 years: namely, the need for making, and maintaining, connections.

Fortuitously, for our cover, Prada Frames – the symposium launched by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Formafantasma as an antidote to the hustle and bustle of the world’s largest design fair – reflects the same concern, this year gathering a cohort of thinkers to examine ‘infrastructure through the lens of movement’ in a waiting room at Milano Centrale station, and aboard Arlecchino, a Gio Ponti-designed train recently resurrected by Fondazione FS Italiane. It’s to the latter we were drawn when choosing our newsstand cover, as a beautifully realised precursor to what it means to truly travel, and therefore connect, in style.

But it serves merely as a jumping-off point for a wider exploration of what connection means in the hands of creatives: whether it’s in the hand-me-down form of heritage as established by 14 design companies celebrating a founding anniversary this year (together representing a total of 905 years of inspiration and resilience), or the multinational, multidisciplinary melting pot created by Shalini Misra in the Shakti Design Residency initiative, a free-flowing exchange of ideas feels more urgent than ever.

The exchanges go on: we profile Faye Toogood’s collaboration with Japanese porcelain manufacturer Noritake, and reveal some of the work of the 25 artists, designers and architects commissioned by Loewe for a Salone project that considers the cross-cultural and ritualistic nature of tea.

For good measure, we visit another creative heartland once served by the Arlecchino – Venice – to profile three studios readying themselves for the opening of the Architecture Biennale. All aboard!

Bill Prince
Editor-in-Chief