TAKING PULSE

How do we make sense of the activities of Milan Design Week — the event site of creative production and consumption? Indesign Media’s post-event review ‘Mindmapping Milan’ identified ten key themes from this year’s fair. How should we read them?

The Salone del Mobile registered more than 386,000 attendees from 181 different countries this year. Its sheer scale and intensity leave many with the feeling of being overwhelmed; even for its most seasoned visitors, the raw experience of the fair can be dense and messy. That is why Indesign Media’s ‘Milan In Review’ – providing an analysis of the wider trends and currents that design operates in – has always been a useful frame through which the interested audience can unpack this behemoth event. What struck me about this year’s review, titled ‘Mindmapping Milan’ and framed by the panel with ten key topics, is the very significance of the activity: the production and consumption of the post-event report.

To take the pulse of something means to ascertain the general mood or opinion of it. In Chinese medicine, a similar expression is used: to take the pulse of someone is to make a diagnosis – to identify a state of ease or dis-ease. It seemed to me that, in taking the pulse of Milan Design Week, the reviewers had made an assessment not only of its ‘mood’ but also of its ‘health’ – an examination of the ‘vitals’: How is the industry doing? Are energy levels good? What is going on, really? Are its organs healthy; what needs to be put right?

That the themes are by no means tidy or distinct threads of discourse but a web of connections with parts influencing and resonating with one another, like the vital systems of a body, also drove home the message that our future depends on a deeper and wider examination of our activities, and a regular process of self checks and balances. Given the biggest topics that have emerged this year are related to broken, damaged worlds and the associated anxieties and creative-reparative possibilities, it may be interesting to read the following themes that the reviewers have identified not merely as the standard, consumable trend report, but as a prognosis and a set of solution-prescriptions for how we may move forward more deliberately and responsibly as participants.

Optimisation

There has been a coming together of several big-name brands – notably with B&B Italia, FLOS and Louis Poulsen forming the new group Design Holding, and the Herman Miller Group (expanded to comprise Colebrook Bosson Saunders, Design Within Reach, Geiger, HAY, Maars Living Walls, Maharam, naughtone, Nemschoff, and Herman Miller) presenting the emphatically named All Together

Now show. A sense of the collective seems to be emerging as the way forward, as brands continue to enjoy creative sovereignty, along with economy and expanded market reach through the sharing of distribution and retail channels, and resources for research and development.

Flexibility

Modular and expandable systems such as My Circuit by Michael Anastassiades for FLOS and the BOB collection by Stefan Borselius and Thomas Bernstrand for Blå Station continue to be popular, as are collections (such as Maruni’s) that are created to suit various spatial settings and cater interchangeably to residential and contract market segments. Products seem to be evolving in a very Darwinian sense as qualities of adaptability, malleability and responsiveness increasingly become requirements in today’s market.

History

Beloved design icons are being re-issued or interpreted – these include the 416 Series by Kho Liang Ie for Artifort, the Pantonova seating by Verner Panton for Montana, and Alvar Aalto’s Stool 60 being reissued by Artek with Jo Nagasaka’s ColoRing technique – reminding us that history is an existing wellspring, a rich and possibly sufficient resource to draw upon as we innovate (or don’t) to tackle new challenges.

[The web of themes]... drove home the message that our future depends on a deeper and wider examination of our activities, and a regular process of self checks and balances.

Human Touch

There is a return to craft and simple processes. The installation conceptualised by Charlotte Macaux Perelman for Maison Hermès comprised 75 tonnes of dry stones laid in 150 metres of walls. It took two weeks to assemble and another one to dismantle. Hella Jongerius’ Vlinder sofa for Vitra explores the role and value of the human (hand) in the digital age, but also the creative possibilities when it is aided by technology – in other words, when technology ‘gives us a hand’.

Simplicity

Many designers are showing a preference for qualities of legibility, clarity and simplicity (of aesthetics and of use). Taut by Klemens Grund for Zeitraum, inspired by the restraint and clarity of Asian aesthetics, has a simple slot-together assembly. With CUGINO,

Konstantin Grcic gave Mattiazzi the challenge of employing minimal technology in the making of the piece. Shows like The Wine Bottle

and The Cork Stopper by Collections Typologie highlighted notions of universality and the idea of evolution in the design of simple everyday objects.

Sustainability

Rossana Orlandi continues her mission of shifting our perception of plastic with her Guiltless Plastic project, asking pointedly, “Is plastic guilty? Or are the abuse and misuse of plastic the real problem?” Pieces at Ventura Future, such artists Renato Japi and Tomáš Krejčí’s Floating Futures (a collection of sculptures and vases that merge glass and inflatables), might be read as warning signs for an impending dystopian future.

Humans and Nature

We are asked to examine our roles, but also our principles and ideals in our complex, interconnected multi-species world. The headline show at La Triennale di Milano, Broken Nature: Design

Takes On Human Survival, presses home the severity of our damaged ecosystems and the urgency of their restoration through reparative design. The show’s curator Paola Antonelli asks us to consider “a perception of long time, beyond the lifespan of a few generations”.

Softness and Emotion

There is a stronger need for softer environments – spaces of comfort and ease that are sensitive to human needs and emotions. Arper advocates a ‘Soft(er)’ palette (of colours, forms and materials) in furnishing, while SONY suggests how we may get more comfortable around robots (to the point of forming affinities or emotional bonds) as robotics evolve to be more intelligent and sensitive to our needs.

Technology

Furniture and technology continue to integrate and meld, as typified in the Symphonisk range of bookshelf-speakers and lamp-speakers that are collaboratively produced by IKEA and Sonos. But it is perhaps Vitra and Panasonic Design’s Vitrine, a framed piece of clear glass that is actually an OLED television, which best embodies the extent of the pervasiveness of technology in our lives.

Expansion of Design

Several presentations (such as Broken Nature: Design Takes On

Human Survival and GEO-DESIGN: Alibaba. From here to your home by the Design Academy Eindhoven), are delivering, partly as an act of self-reflection, messages about the place and position of design within new infrastructures. It is a discussion of responsibility – both of complicity (in production and consumption) and of more wholesome contributions.