ONE WEEK ABOUT Milano Design Week 2025
Day 6 – report by David Heldt
Visiting the Sun Catcher by design studio Rive Roshan feels like attending a sacred worship of a sun god. At the centre of a huge crater in the earth lies the historic pond of Villa Bagatti Valsecchi in which there is a semi-circular colourful mirror, the reflection of the water completing the circle. Around the pond, people lie in the grass and contemplate the miracle.
While in Milan no expense is spared to build enigmatic decors to present the designs properly, Alcova seems to have found the perfect setting half an hour’s drive from the city. The Alcova exhibition platform in the town of Varedo offers a mix of dilapidated industrial complexes and villas. Like the Ex-SNIA complex, which was one of Lombardy’s largest industrial complexes, is now overgrown with plants and moss and is the setting for numerous exhibitors.
Back in Milan, two things strike me, the industrial use of biodegradable materials has taken off, or the shapes of furniture have an organic character. Lamps by Jack Brandsma are sleek and moulded and made of potato starch. The translucent material diffuses light as if it were frosted glass. At Rossana Orlandi I meet Teun Zwets and Willem Zwiers, they stand next to each other with a cabinet. No, they do not work together but there is a similarity in their work. Both cabinets are anything but sleek, seemingly shaped by nature, then with nature. This playful form language fits the era of collectible design. No series production, everything is unique. Each individual can stand out to the maximum, and it never gets boring.
The designer duo of Studio BCXSY, also at gallery Rossana Orlandi, fits into this trend, but cleverly combines it with though reproducible basics. The Archive Light, a brass construction with integrated lights, beautifully illuminates crystal shapes or glasses by Viennese crystal manufacturer Lobmeyr. The collection of unique glass shapes are beautifully highlighted and spread a chic light, just like the chandeliers of old.
Worship of light is what has stayed with me this year. Light, not to see an object better, but light as an object.
Photography: David Heldt
