Milan Design Week
The Paradox of Digital Proximity
I didn’t go to Salone del Mobile. But I consumed it. For me, April unfolded like a mirage, not in the palazzos or streets of Milan, but across the digital pages of magazines, in well crafted essays, reflective recaps, the feeds of design influencers, and the glow of late-night Instagram scrolls. I found myself wading through a never-ending cascade. Yet what struck me was the peculiar duality of my experience. I was simultaneously closer to Milan Design Week, and yet fundamentally disconnected from what makes this annual pilgrimage essential for so many in our field.
My understanding of this year’s Salone del Mobile, like every other year, was shaped by what editors at Dezeen, Wallpaper, Archdaily and others deemed significant — a curated lens that both reveals and conceals. This digital rendering made me think of what we gain and lose when design culture translates to screens. The democratisation of access is undeniable; no longer is attendance contingent upon financial privilege, professional connections, or geographic convenience. And yet, what does it mean to “experience” design through the flattened interface of a screen, mediated by the curatorial decisions of editors, social media managers, PR and marketing teams?
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Dezeen’s “Ten enviable apartments unlocked for Milan design week,” illuminated precisely what was missing: a sense of wanderlust that comes from moving through spaces not normally accessible to the public. Photographs, however expertly composed, cannot convey the volumetric reality of these grand rooms, the dialogue between objects and their settings, or the phenomenological experience of presence. What I could also not experience was the warmth of the Milanese sun; casual conversations with strangers in the palazzo; the stir in emotions and spiritual angst with Robert Wilson presentation of “Mother”; the smell of espresso lingering in spaces; the bodily fatigue that comes from hours of walking and waiting in the queues. I kept returning to this list, as if something else was amiss.
Despite its incompleteness, this digital experience offered a certain sense of liberation. I moved from installation to installation, lists to lists, and stories to stories with effortless clicks, guided not by distances but by algorithms and curatorial decisions of magazines. I was able to move, at a contemplative pace, between Benjamin Hubert’s 101010 collection — which Eric Mutrie of Azure Media aptly puts as, “strive to do nothing less than solve the world’s problems,” — to Yatzer’s Costas Voyatzis’ piece on SaloneSatellite’s New Craftsmanship: A New World, highlighting materials, technologies, and social concerns that are quietly shaping the next chapter of design itself, and Alcova’s newest sites: the former SNIA Factory and the Pasino Glasshouses, where the juxtaposition of industrial decay and nature’s reclamation became evident. In all this was an experience both expansive and disembodied.
Amidst the listicles, reviews, PR pitched articles and fashion brand’s marketing declarations, what resonated most was Wallpaper’s Hugo Macdonald’s substantive interview with Maria Porro, the first female president in Salone del Mobile’s 63 years of history. Their conversation raised critical questions on the legacy and direction for Salone: What lasting impact does such a festival leave on its host city? How can Salone ensure that it remains accessible and relevant rather than becoming an exclusive showcase for luxury? Can it evolve from a business marketplace and commercial spectacle into a long-term cultural incubator for Milan’s creative economy? Perhaps this year’s edition offered some answers, with Es Devlin’s Library of Light, highlighting what it takes to engage the creative spirit of the community in a thriving city like Milan.
These reflections brought me back to something more fundamental: a question Max Fraser raised the year before: “is design increasingly moving away from addressing the everyday needs of ordinary people, and instead churning out a disproportionate number of decorative objects for the wealthy?” A single scroll through the abundance of displays underscores the concern — and perhaps this is where my digital vantage point offered unexpected clarity. Not being swept up in the spectacle allowed me to observe the excess and the imbalance with a degree of critical distance. Jack Murphy of The Architect’s Newspaper shared similar concern as he penned down his review. “How we can reduce consumption? How can we slow down? How can we create things that won’t spend centuries in a landfill or clumped in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?” he asked.
As another global pilgrimage, Venice Architecture Biennale, opens to the public today, and London’s season for festivals follow, I find myself not just accepting but also questioning my digital vantage point. When I encounter these curated fragments through screen, am I truly engaging with architecture and design, or merely with its representation? Am I forming genuine connections, or simply collecting images? Even if so, am I missing out on the larger picture that perhaps one can hardly, if never, get from behind the screen? What hierarchies emerge between those who experience such an event first hand and those who, like me, get a peep through digital windows? I don’t have answers, only more questions.
