Milan Design Week 2023: top 20 districts and group exhibitions

Everything installation by Nohlab @ MEET. Porta Venezia Design District 2023 - Photo Courtesy of PVDD.

This is going to be a very long post. Archipanic’s founder and editor-in-chief Enrico Zilli mapped Milan Design Week 2023 top destinations. Buckle your belts for design on a roller coaster, a serendipitous marathon of creativity for people with comfy shoes.

Best of Alcova 2022: 8 exhibitions at the Milanese independent design platform

Alcova 2022 - Photo by Mattia Parodi.

Alcova 2022: onyx portals, inflatable furniture and magmatic parallelisms. Archipanic’s editor-in-chief Enrico Zilli selected eight innovative design projects on show.

Archipanic’s design tour of 5vie 2022: fine crafts and contemporary Babel towers

Geoge Geara @ 5vie 2022 - Courtesy of George Geara.

A stone’s throw from Piazza del Duomo, the 5Vie design district features dozens of events and exhibitions tuning with the main theme ‘Prototyping Utopias’ inspired by the visionary approach of the iconic Archizoom collective. Check our design route to visit the best of it.

Brera Design District 2022: Archipanic’s design route in the heart of Milan

Bera Design District 2022 - Photo by © Mattia Vacca,

There is a lot to discover along the cobbled street of the Brera Design District 2022. Flagship stores of leading Italian and international brands, exhibitions in historic palaces, design apartments, an eclectic symposium and a ‘foamy’ concept cocktail bar.

Tortona Rocks 2022 celebrates materials innovation and sustainability

Tortona Rocks 2022. Opificio 31, main entrance - Courtesy of Tortona Rocks.

Tortona Rocks 2022: discover an interactive musical lighting design show, anamorphic street art and rising talents from Germany and Slovenia.

Ten blooming exhibitions at Milan Design Week 2022

'Floating Forest' by Stefano Boeri interiors x Timberland - Courtesy of Timberland.

Californian springs, giant olive shoots with golden leaves, floating forests and choreographies with flowers and drones. Milan Design Week celebrates nature with blooming exhibitions.

Milan Design Week 2022: 25 must-visit exhibitions and destinations

Masterly 2022 - Image by Studio ZAZI.

Lighting designs inspired by Brutalist churches and temples, a virtuous Babel tower, volcanic rock lightings, anamorphic murales and a design gin garden. The best of Milan Design Week 2022 is on Archipanic.

Elena Salmistraro: “Milan is back. This year I felt excited as if it was my first design week”

AXO IN FABULA by Elerna Salmistraro X Cappellini - Courtesy of Cappellini.

We sat down with Elena Salmistraro to talk about her projects at Milan Design Week, what the pandemic has taught us for good, women in design, and her positive attitude toward the future.

Natural Capital: Carlo Ratti visualises trees’ key role in reducing CO2 through data

NATURAL CAPITAL by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati x ENI - Photo by Marco Beck Peccoz, courtesy of CRA.

Energy company Eni and CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati present the ‘Natural Capital’ exhibition highlighting the importance of protecting and conserving forests. At the Brera Botanical Garden, a landscape of floating bubbles visualises through data how much CO2 each human produces and how much each tree species can capture and store.

‘Fantastic Smartphones’ and how to hack them… For our sake!

Fantastic Smartphones - Courtesy of ECAL University of Art and Design Lausanne.

Let’s admit it; our smartphones often outsmart us. With the FANTASTIC SMARTPHONES exhibition, students at ECAL University have developed tongue-in-cheek devices, robots and interfaces able to hack our mobiles and make us reflect on how much we have become dependent on Tinder, Instagram, What’s Up or TicToc.

A flame for research: 10 candleholders to fight cancer

A FLAME FOR RESEARCH - Photo by Matteo Imbriani.

Hope, togetherness, grief and remembrance are the intimate feelings that inspired international designers such as Jaime Hayon, Federica Biasi, Luca Nichetto and Marcel Wanders to create ten candleholders for the A FLAME OF RESEARCH project by Mingardo. The unique pieces will be auctioned to support cancer research.