Every artist, company and organisation connected to the sector lays everything on the line during this intense week, each vying to claim its own corner of Milan and its share of the city’s spotlight. For this edition, Istituto Marangoni goes further. With Design Awakens, it steps into the streets, creating a diffuse path that weaves through spaces, installations and international collaborations to portray design as a living system in constant renewal. It abandons the notion of aesthetics as mere form, embracing instead a powerful, tangible concept of design which, like an engine, transforms objects, environments and technologies into active presences, capable of interacting with individuals and redefining the very notion of experience, now fluid and ever-changing.
From 15 to 26 April, the Istituto Marangoni campus on Via Cerva becomes the focal point of this narrative. Here, students and alumni bring four exhibitions to life, forming a coherent yet surprising journey. The first, Soul of Space, developed in collaboration with Poltrona Frau, explores new visions of total living through projects by Master’s students in Interior Design, Interior Contract and Luxury Boutique Hotel Interior Design. Outside In, created with RivAtelier, reimagines outdoor living through contributions from the undergraduate Product Design course, dissolving the boundaries between interior and exterior. The IM Prisma Project, in collaboration with L’Astro, sees alumni professionals transforming furnishings into highly emotive tactile and visual experiences. Finally, Seamless Singularities gathers the most experimental visions from students of Interior, Product and Visual Design, culminating in an installation that propels visitors into a radically new design dimension.
And that is not all. From 20 to 26 April, the Design Awakens route extends across the city. With a presence in the Superstudio world, it seeks to strengthen dialogue with the international design system while renewing its historic connection with this key Fuorisalone hub. At Superstudio Più, the Domestic Oracles Exhibition, developed with Alessi and the Italian Institute of Technology, presents household objects imbued with an almost predictive, relational dimension. Superstudio Maxi hosts Future City: Cap Club & Cap Spa Exhibition, conceived in collaboration with Giulio Cappellini, a visionary interpretation of urban space and collective wellbeing. Meanwhile, at the Salone Satellite, The Sense of the Future brings together projects from the Milan, London, Mumbai and Dubai campuses, fostering a global exchange of languages, cultures and perspectives.
Information: istitutomarangoni.com