Last week, Milan hosted its annual Salone del Mobile furniture fair and design week. During Salone, designers and manufacturers pull out all the stops to present their best work to the more than 300,000 people who flock to Milan for the fair. Think of it as the furniture industry’s fashion week.
This year, designers explored the fertile ground between digital fabrication and craft and the value of multisensory experience-driven design; they developed new materials and production techniques; they tried to solve some of our most mundane problems, like moving; they found ways to make boring furniture categories exciting; they looked to design to alleviate some of the stresses wrought by our trying political times; and, of course, they created a lot stuff that’s simply gorgeous.