Gregory Anderson, Creative Director of Trigger Design, reviews the stand designs that impressed him most at this year’s Milan Furniture Fair.

There is a precise art/science in positioning a brand and creating a unique spatial relationship between a collection and its visitors.

At Salone much creativity, time and money is lavished on custom designed environments built to showcase furniture and products.

This year some of these installations were architectural statements or bonafide works of art in themselves, and were created by some of the world’s most talented designers.

GamFratesi Studio created a tri pavilion environment to display 3 types of living for ’The Danish Livingroom’ at Rho.

 

The use of the classic house-shaped timber structures was the perfect canvas to display Danish masterpieces alongside innovative new design. The effect was very unpretentious and pleasing.

For knockout factor there was Kush+Co – a dramatic, crimson lit Cabaret-esque stage scene of chairs in bondage by German designers Atelier Brückner.

 

 

Walking into Foscarini was like being beamed onto the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. This mind blowing cinematic multiple projection installation, by Vicente Garcia Jimenez, showed an elemental visual and aural interpretation of the collection and there was not a physical object to be seen.

 

A sports car made entirely from timber, situated at the entrance of 1920R, was obscured by hundreds of visitors molesting every part of it (by the way, it did feel good.)

Ivano Redaelli referenced the proscenium arch seen in 19th century ballets, except the graphics depicted were monolithic modernist concrete structures instead of floral trellises.

 

Achingly beautiful metal lace artworks were the final level of textural detail that ’dressed the set’.

 

Great stand design was not only restricted to the big brands with the high budgets; smaller well considered stands, many of them by emerging designers, created memorable environments with little resources.

Post Fossil, a brand of utilitarian furniture for the home used a flexible system of hexagonal tiles. Timo Niskanen harnessed the honesty of the paint roller.

 

Photography: Gregory Anderson and Simon Fallon

Trigger Design
triggerdesign.com.au

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