The 2024 edition of the most important widespread event in the world dedicated to design has ended: here's how this year's Milan Design Week went.

This spring's appointment with design has ended: it was an unprecedented edition which saw large numbers of international visitors from every continent return to Milan. The numbers confirm it: 1125 events in the Guide with 838 connected brands, an online audience of 630k users, grown by 23% compared to 2023, coming from 162 different countries.

The themes
This edition was also the one that confirmed the role of design in bringing to the general public new languages and visions for our future relationship with the planet: with the theme Materia Natura, embraced and adopted by the many events in the city, Fuorisalone created the opportunity to bring to light the issues that concern the contemporary context of environmental, economic and social crisis, read through the lens of design and project culture. From the most ironic and irreverent initiatives to utopias, from dystopias to engineering research projects, independent brands, emerging designers, schools, designers and companies have focused on the progress of the discipline in the field of sustainability, accompanying improvements in processes and production with investigations into new materials and the possibilities offered by recycling and reuse, coming to embrace this approach to the event also with their set-ups, the interior of the spaces and the often radical exhibition choices.

Fuorisalone Award
With the Milan Design Week 2024, the third edition of the Fuorisalone Award also ended, a recognition that rewarded the most memorable contents and installations, and won this year by the Czech brand Lasvit with Re/Creation, at Palazzo Isimbardi with a monumental fused glass installation designed by art director Maxim Velcovsky.

Increasingly sought after by companies and designers, the Fuorisalone Award project has confirmed itself as dynamic and innovative, oriented towards creativity and ideas capable of temporarily transforming the face and atmosphere of Milan. Special mentions follow the Fuorisalone Award:
Interaction: Data Bugs - AI is a mirror by Dotdotdot
Sustainability: BORN IN OASI ZEGNA by Zegna
Technology: Earthic ® Lab by Formafantasma x Cosentino
Communication: NENDO: whispers of nature
Special Mention Media Partner: Elica Straordinaria by WE+

The summary of the edition
Fuorisalone animated some of the lesser-known corners of the city and led us to discover new ones: the large garage overlooking the Darsena with Moscapartners, the industrial spaces in via Fantoli with Baranzate Ateliers, the former railway yards, from via Farini with Isola Design Festival at Stazione Centrale with the Dropcity project, the Artesanos exhibition at the former Casoretto cinema, the Trotter Park Water House transformed into a Day Bath, the now iconic Spazio Maiocchi which teamed up with 10Corsocomo, the spaces of the former pharmaceutical laboratories of Labò, up to the two villas in Varedo protagonists of this edition of Alcova, Villa Bagatti Valsecchi and Villa Borsani. But still, the historic buildings have been opened to the public: Palazzo Bovara, Palazzo Citterio, Palazzo Litta, Palazzo Reale, Palazzo Isimbardi, Palazzo Turati, Palazzo Senato, Palazzo Bagatti Valsecchi, Palazzo Clerici, Palazzo San Fedele, Palazzo Cusani, and the Circolo Filologico Milanese.

Brands, designers, architects, universities, curators and artists have brought to the city a very wide range of new people who have met to try to imagine new visions and imagined languages to innovate the relationship we have with the world - starting from the domestic one. The great protagonist, in fact, has once again become the rethinking of the relationship with the home, explored in events such as La Casa Dentro by ICA, the Foresteria of C41, La Casa Ovunque, IKEA 1st (First), the Glitch Camp by IED, the habitable exhibition Runaways at DOPO?, the rooftop camping at BASE.

Fashion was then at the center of this edition, cementing the union between the various souls of the city (design, fashion and art) and confirming the ever-increasing inclination towards contamination between all-round activations: Bottega Veneta with On The Rocks, Rimowa from Spazio Maiocchi, the Oasi Zegna between the showroom and Piazza Duomo, Gucci, Miu Miu, Prada, Stone Island, Woolrich, Moon Boot, Saint Laurent, Sunnei, Loewe, Birckenstock, Xacus, Marsell, MSGM, Aspesi - just to mention the main ones.

The 2024 edition of Fuorisalone then saw the birth of the collaboration with miart - leading to the definition of five thematic visit itineraries, a collaborative talk and a greater mix of events - and saw the consolidation of the collaboration with Salone del Mobile.Milano, with the creation of a system with 47 events spread across the territory defined together with the event and the exhibiting companies.