| | Rosa Bertoli, global design directorWhat a week it’s been – the Wallpaper* team has been in Milan, reporting from Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week. It’s a week that energises us, and this energy then keeps us inspired for several months. It’s not often that you get to have dinner on the stage of La Scala Theatre, bump into old friends on the street and muse about a meatball-flavoured lollipop from Ikea, or have an argument with an old-school Milanese doorman, who simply cannot understand why a dozen strangers need to walk up to an apartment to see a designer’s new pieces. For us, the events in Milan are where we discover new work, new ideas, and new concepts, but also where we come together with a global network of designers, architects, curators and entrepreneurs who, every year, choose this city as the main place to gather and connect. |
Ambra Medda’s return to Milan: ‘I love being part of a city that is changing at such speed’ |
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This year’s Milan Design Week marks a turning point for industry veteran Ambra Medda (above, right), the design strategist and curator who is widely regarded as a foundational figure in the collectible design scene, having co-founded Design Miami in 2005, collaborated with design heavyweights across the globe, and established online marketplace L’ArcoBaleno. Following a move to Milan from her longtime base in London, she has opened a new creative space for her curatorial studio AMO, hosting its inaugural exhibition during Design Week.
‘It’s our sunny corner of Milan, a bit off the beaten path. Visitors can expect a mash-up of fine art, folk art, craft and design. We hope people leave feeling refreshed, inspired and optimistic.’ Co-curated with design historian Amy Tai (above, left), the show brings together the ceramic work of Greek designer Leda Athanasopoulou and textiles by the Chinese artist Yumo Yuan. Ahead of the opening, Wallpaper* caught up with Medda to discuss the evolving industry, her latest ventures, and Milan’s renewed allure.
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Natalia Criado’s tableware collaboration feels like a bridge across dimensions |
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Since founding her eponymous brand in 2018, Milan-based, Colombia-born designer Natalia Criado has been developing a body of work that reads as both functional object and sculpture. Known for her tableware wrought in silver-plated metal – often articulated through uncanny, surrealist gestures – she creates pieces that carry a palpable symbolic charge, drawing on themes as disparate as personal memory and pre-Columbian objects. To pair that esoteric sensibility with a house like Laboratorio Paravicini – the Milanese ceramics brand known for its deftly hand-illustrated ceramics – feels like a bridge across dimensions. ‘What drew me in was not only the craftsmanship, but the structure behind it, a family-run studio largely composed of women,’ Criado says. The collaboration has resulted in a new tableware collection, ‘Metalia’. If you can’t catch it during Milan Design Week, discover it here as Criado discusses her evolving relationship with ceramics, and her adopted home town: ‘Milan has this duality, it’s extremely fast, very industrial, but at the same time deeply rooted in tradition and craft.’ |
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Nao Tamura on her new works taking flight |
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‘In-between’ is a word that comes up often in conversation with designer Nao Tamura, whose quietly intuitive work typically hovers between tension and balance, space and time, motion and stillness. Tamura – who also slips easily between the cultures of her native Japan and her adopted home, New York – has long been in the spotlight for her contemporary objects, furniture and spaces that often blend clean-lined purity and a quiet, modern poetry with a sense of lightness.
Milan has also played a key role in her design journey. In 2010, Tamura won the inaugural SaloneSatellite Award at Salone del Mobile (‘Winning gave me visibility, but more importantly, it gave me a small confidence to continue,’ she says). This year she’s back, with scattered flocks of her bird-inspired portable ‘Tiki’ lamps in new shades (from sunshine yellow to pebble grey) alongside oval-topped ‘Fez’ tables at Established & Sons, as well as her clean-lined new ‘Ryo’ bookcase for Porro. She takes a pause from the Design Week circuit to talk to Wallpaper* about her new work, the beauty of balance, and all things in-between – herself included.
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