Milan Unlocked: The Most Inspiring Spaces of Design Week 2025
PEOPLE • EVENTS
Milan once again asserts itself as the global epicenter of design with Milan Design Week 2025 and its vibrant offsite program, Fuorisalone. Across the city, palazzos, showrooms, and industrial spaces are transformed into stages for creativity — where immersive installations, experimental exhibitions, and bold collaborations unfold. From iconic names to emerging talents, this year’s edition is a celebration of contemporary design at its most daring and imaginative.
Here, Designeers curates its Top 10 must-see moments of the week — your essential guide to the exhibitions, concepts, and spaces that are setting the tone for design’s future.
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Nilufar & Nilufar Depot
Gucci Bamboo Encounters
1. NILUFAR & NILUFAR DEPOT via della spiga 32
At Nilufar Depot, an interplay of transparencies and depth will welcome visitors, leading them through a one-of-a-kind sensory journey. At the heart of the space, the absolute protagonists will be the Faraglioni console and the imposing Faraglioni table, emblematic examples of Studio Etereo’s artisanal craftsmanship and material research. The table’s sturdy bronze legs evoke the famous rock formations, supporting glass surfaces that, are shaped like a liquid. Inspired by sea foam, the texture adds depth and movement, recalling the perpetual dance of waves on the shore and paying homage to the Faraglioni of Capri, a timeless symbol of beauty and power.
2. GUCCI BAMBOO ENCOUNTERS BRERA
Since 2006, Gucci has embraced the bamboo motif as a symbol of heritage and craftsmanship. At Milan Design Week 2025, the brand presents Bamboo Encounters at the Cloisters of San Simpliciano, an installation exploring the relationship between nature and design. The exhibit highlights the sustainable qualities of bamboo, showcasing its versatility in both art and design.
Through this immersive experience, Gucci emphasizes how natural materials like bamboo inspire innovation while staying true to sustainability. The installation blends nature with contemporary design in a historic setting, inviting visitors to reflect on the evolving connection between nature, craftsmanship, and modern design.
Loro Piana
cc-tapis
3. LORO PIANA & DIMOREMILANO VIA DELLA MOSCOVA 33, BRERA
For this year’s Milan Design Week, Loro Piana and Dimoremilano come together to present La Prima Notte di Quiete — an immersive installation that blurs the line between reality and cinematic fiction. Set within the Cortile della Seta at Loro Piana’s Milanese headquarters, the experience unfolds like a film — conceived and directed by Dimorestudio’s Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran — inviting visitors into a dreamlike domestic world.
Crafted with furniture by Dimoremilano and upholstered in Loro Piana Interiors' exquisite fabrics, the installation reveals a sequence of spaces: entrance, dining room, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a secluded garden. Each room transforms into a cocooned retreat, shielding its guests from the outside world — a quiet, poetic escape defined by timeless elegance, masterful craftsmanship, and a shared reverence for quality and savoir-faire.
4. CC-TAPIS Piazza santo stefano 10
Known for its innovative approach to high-end textile design, cc-tapis presents Ways of Seeing, an immersive installation that invites visitors to explore fresh perspectives in the world of textile design. In collaboration with a curated selection of leading international designers and artists—including Patricia Urquiola, Cristina Celestino, India Mahdavi, and more—each contributor brings a distinct vision, creating a dynamic dialogue between contemporary design and traditional techniques.
The exhibition enoucrages a deeper engagement with the evolving intersection of art, design, and craftmanship, offering a space to reimagine how textiles can be perceived, interpreted and experienced in new and innovative ways.
Artemest, L’Apartamento
Saint Laurent - Charlotte Perriand
5. ARTEMEST l’apartamento palazo donizeti, via gaetano donizeti
L’Apartamento by Artemest presents an immersive journey through the finest of Italian craftsmanship. Set within a 1930s Milanese apartment, the exhibition brings together seven international interior designers, each curating a distinct space within the home. The result is a layered, integrated narrative where age-old techniques and modern design thinking coexist in dialogue.
Each room reflects the designer’s unique perspective, brought to life through Artemest’s network of master artisans—from Murano glassmakers and woodworkers to ceramicists and textile weavers. As visitors move through the apartment, they experience a sensorial showcase of Italy’s artisanal legacy, reframed through a modern lens. L’Apartamento blurs the line between exhibition and lived-in space, offering a fresh interpretation of luxury as something intimate, soulful, and enduring.
6. saint laurent - charlotte Periand, padiglione visconti
During Milan Design Week 2025, Saint Laurent and creative director Anthony Vaccarello will unveil the "Saint Laurent–Charlotte Perriand," an exhibition bringing to life four previously unrealized furniture designs by the pioneering modernist architect and designer Charlotte Perriand. These pieces, dating from 1943 to 1967, were produced for the first time in limited editions and showcased at Padiglione Visconti in Milan. The exhibition highlights Perriand's innovative approach, blending functionality and elegance, and underscores Saint Laurent's commitment to celebrating design heritage.
Alcova
Alchemica, by Patricia Urquiola
7. ALCOVA multiple locations
Alcova 2025 returns for its ninth edition during Milan Design Week 2025, running from April 7–13 in Varedo, further establishing Milan as a city of constant growth and transformation. This year, Alcova expands across four key venues: the historic Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, Villa Borsani, the Pasino glasshouses, and the former SNIA factory — each offering a unique dialogue between design, materiality, and reclaimed architecture. From industrial heritage to natural overgrowth, the installations explore the intersection of production, sustainability, and spatial storytelling.
8. alchemica, by patricia urquiola palazzo bovara
For Salone del Mobile 2025, Elle Decor Italia presents Elle Decor ALCHEMICA, a striking installation by acclaimed designer Patricia Urquiola. This immersive exhibition explores the transformation of the contemporary home through the ancient metaphor of alchemy. Inspired by the evolving relationship between design and daily life, ALCHEMICA reflects on how domestic spaces adapt to social and cultural change.
The installation is structured around the three fundamental stages of alchemical transformation — Nigredo, Albedo, and Rubedo — each expressed in unique environments representing symbolic areas of the home. Blending visionary design with poetic storytelling, Elle Decor ALCHEMICA is a must-see highlight of Milan Design Week 2025 for anyone interested in innovative interior design and conceptual living spaces.
Prada Frames
Cassina x Forma Fantasma
9. prada frameS milan’s central station
Prada Frames 2025 returns for its fourth edition during Milan Design Week, curated by renowned design studio Formafantasma. This year’s symposium, titled In Transit, investigates infrastructure as a powerful system influencing the movement of people, goods, data, and power. Held at the Padiglione Reale in Milan Central Station and on a historic Gio Ponti - designed train, the event prioritizes ideas over products. Through a multidisciplinary lens, it explores how global logistics, digital networks, and mobility intersect with design and the environment. In Transit critically examines the contradictions of hypermobility and the socio-political implications of contemporary infrastructure systems.
10. cassina X formafantasma, Teatro Lirico Giorgio Gaber, Via Larga 14
Formafantasma, the renowned research-based design studio, investigates the ecological, historical, political, and social forces shaping design today. Whether collaborating with clients or pursuing self-initiated projects, the studio is known for its rigorous attention to context, process, and detail. Their analytical approach consistently results in visually refined products, installations, and strategies that challenge conventional design narratives.
During Milan Design Week 2025, Formafantasma presents Staging Modernity — a theatrical performance and installation created in collaboration with opera director Fabio Cherstich. The piece celebrates 60 years of Cassina’s legacy in the modernist movement, merging design, storytelling, and performance in a bold tribute to modernism’s enduring impact.
