During the Milan Design WeekThe Lombard capital is once again transformed into a vast open-air stage where design, architecture, art, and technology blend seamlessly. In just a few days, the city is filled with immersive installations, ephemeral exhibitions, and experimental projects that set the tone for what's to come in the sector.
In this edition, the focus is divided between revitalized historical spaces, major international brands and more experimental proposalsFrom baroque palaces and rationalist villas to disused military hospitals, Milan demonstrates why it remains the essential meeting point for design professionals from all over Europe, including an increasingly strong presence of projects linked to Spain.
Milan, urban laboratory: from Salone to Fuorisalone
The week revolves around the Salone del Mobile and the fuorisalone, which from April 20 to 26 transforms Milan into a an open-air creative workshop full of routes, districts and experiencesNeighborhoods like Brera, Tortona or Isola, along with locations usually closed to the public, are filled with tours that alternate product design, artistic installations and spaces for reflection on the contemporary city.
El fuorisalone 2026 It features hundreds of events spread throughout the city, with a program ranging from luxury brands to independent projects. Immersive installations, interactive displays, and live performances aim to engage visitors beyond simply showcasing products. The result is an urban landscape that transforms completely for a week, serving as a barometer of the future direction of European design.
The presence of large houses like Louis Vuitton or Dior In various Milanese locations, the event's international dimension is reinforced, while emerging brands and independent studios are spread across less conventional spaces. This balance between big names and smaller projects keeps the week's exploratory essence alive.
For many Spanish and European studiesMilan has become a key event for presenting collections, testing reactions from the professional public, and building contacts with distributors, galleries, and specifiers from across the continent.
Palaces, villas and historic houses: contemporary design with a heritage twist
One of the constants of the Milan Design Week is the use of historical buildings as a container for contemporary projects. This year, several proposals aim to activate palaces and emblematic homes, generating suggestive dialogues between architecture of the last century and current design.
On Palazzo AcerbiHoused in a 17th-century Baroque building, H&M Home is making its debut at Milan Design Week with a collection created in collaboration with American interior designer Kelly Wearstler, known for her maximalist approach. The exhibition unfolds across different rooms of the palace in a circular itinerary, previewing nine pieces from a total of 29 items that will be released on the Swedish brand's digital channels on September 3, 2026. Modular furnitureVases, lamps and tables are presented as an evolutionary system that reinterprets the contemporary home from a very graphic and volumetric language.
Also in the heart of the city, the house designed by Osvaldo Borsani Between 1947 and 1948, it opened its doors to the public for the first time thanks to an installation by Interni Venosta. The rationalist apartment became a silent journey where contemporary pieces in burnished metals, lacquered woods, and neutral upholstery converse with Borsani's iconic original leathers. Rather than imposing itself, the new furnishings highlight moldings, frame views, and modulate the rhythm of the visit, enhancing the architectural interpretation of the space.
Louis Vuitton, for its part, occupies the rooms of Serbelloni Palace With a new installment of Objets Nomades, paying homage to Pierre Legrain, a key figure of Art Deco who already collaborated with the maison in the 20s. The tour shows a selection of furniture, tableware and textiles inspired by his bookbindings, while the palace courtyard hosts an installation based on an illustration by Legrain himself, brought to the space by seven students from the Accademia di Brera through live painting sessions that take place throughout the week.
Meanwhile, haute couture also has its place. The exhibition “Gucci Memory” It traces 105 years of the firm's history through 12 tapestries created specifically for the occasion. In the cloisters of San Simpliciano, a floral display transforms the courtyard into a three-dimensional garden that reinterprets the historic Gucci Flora motif from 1966, designed by Vittorio Accornero, linking graphic heritage and ephemeral staging.
Alcova and Villa Pestarini: experimentation in a domestic key
The traveling platform Alcove It has established itself as one of the most influential parallel events of Milan Design Week. This year, one of its key locations is Villa Pestarini, a rationalist single-family home designed in 1938 by the Italian architect Franco Albini, which is opening to the general public for the first time.
The house becomes a mosaic of experimental design proposals and contemporary furniture, with special prominence given to an installation of Patricia Urquiola In which a large Cassina rug dominates the main living room, creating a geometric echo of Albini's glass facade. The piece functions almost as a secondary plane that articulates the space, playing with textures, color, and a highly graphic use of the flooring.
In this same context, the Heimtextil fair strengthens its ties with Milan and with Urquiola itself, underlining its commitment to textiles as transformative and intelligent materialsTheir proposals emphasize fabrics that combine craftsmanship, technology, sustainability and structure, understood not only as coverings but as systems that affect the way in which space is inhabited.
The collaboration between Heimtextil, Alcova, and Urquiola, developed in recent years, points to a future where the boundary between textiles and architecture blurs. Immersive projects like "among-all," presented at the Frankfurt trade fair, now engage in dialogue with Milanese installations, demonstrating how textile research impacts both domestic interior design and public and contract spaces.
This experimental approach makes Villa Pestarini and other Alcova locations benchmarks for detecting micro-trends that later filter into the European habitat market.
Hospitals, cloisters and churches: sensory installations and light as matter
In addition to villas and palaces, Milan Design Week explores spaces with very different original uses, such as former hospitals and religious complexes, to house facilities where light, sound and the perception of the body in space take center stage.
In the old Baggio Military HospitalAt Alcova's second location this year, over a hundred international exhibitors are showcasing collectible design pieces in spaces such as the chapel, the laundry room, and the warehouses. Among them, Sten Studio's offering stands out, recreating a wedding ceremony through natural stone objects and a staging accompanied by live harp music, underscoring the almost ritualistic nature of the installation.
The cosmetics firm Aesop takes advantage of Milan Design Week to present its first own lighting fixture with a two-act project entitled “The Factory of Light”Located in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, the exhibition features a tour in the cloisters showcasing the artisanal process of crafting the Aposē lamp, which combines a hand-cast brass base and a blown glass crown to emit a warm, even light. In the chapel, the experience becomes more intimate and sensory, inviting visitors to engage with the piece in silence and dim light.
This way of working with light, understood both as a physical object and as an atmosphere, is very present in many of the installations scattered throughout Milan, where the contrasts between interior and exterior, shadow and brightness, are used to modify the perception of time and of one's own body in space.
The tendency to intervene in disused religious or health sites reinforces the idea that contemporary design functions here as a tool for reinterpreting built heritage, generating new narratives from buildings with an evident historical charge.
Mobiles, prototypes and cars as spaces: the automotive industry meets design
Beyond the furniture and lighting, the mobility It has become one of the central themes of discussion at Milan Design Week. Several automotive brands are taking advantage of this context to explore the car not only as a technological product, but also as a living space, an experience, and an extension of everyday life.
At Milan Design Week 2026, Audi The new RS 5 is presented alongside the installation “Origin,” designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The piece is conceived as a response to the sensory overload of contemporary cities and proposes an immersive environment that invites visitors to slow down and observe. In the exhibition space, the Formula 1 car and the RS 5 coexist, creating a dialogue between extreme performance and everyday use that demonstrates how emotion and technology can coexist under a single formal language.
The project is based on a clearly interdisciplinary approach, integrating design, engineering and contemporary cultureThe intention goes beyond exhibiting vehicles: a narrative is constructed that links concepts such as speed and awareness, emphasizing that the pursuit of performance also involves balance, control, and attention to the user.
Lexus, for its part, is landing at Superstudio Più, in the Tortona district, with the exhibition “Space” and the co-creation project “Discover Together 2026”Under the idea “Discover Your Space” and taking the LS Concept prototype as a reference, the Japanese brand proposes an itinerary divided into several rooms where the meaning of personal space is explored, both inside a vehicle and in a symbolic handmade cosmos.
In the first room, a small-scale catamaran floats on a circular pool, illuminating the dimly lit space; in the second, a rotating platform displays a luxury Lexus van. The tour culminates in “The Crafted Cosmos,” an installation created by Japanese artisans in collaboration with the Lexus design team, which transforms the room into a universe constructed with almost microscopic precision: pieces of joinery assembled without glue or nails, sculptural seats molded from three-dimensional plywood, and a play of scales ranging from 0,1 millimeters to a metaphorical cosmic dimension.
Lexus's message focuses on the Craftsmanship as a way to define intimate luxuryIn this vision, the car is understood as a personal sanctuary and design as a bridge between tradition and the future. The four works in “Discover Together 2026,” created by talents from Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, and Lexus's own in-house team, explore notions such as “wearable space,” intimacy in motion, and the experience of light as an architectural material.
Kia and the car as an emotional experience
Another of the most discussed proposals in the field of mobility is that of Kiawhich is taking advantage of Milan Design Week to shift its narrative. Instead of focusing solely on electrification, the Korean brand envisions the future of the automobile as a field where technology, experience, and the emotional connection to the journey are equally important.
The prototype Vision Meta Turismo It is presented as a reinterpretation of grand touring for the digital age. It is conceived not so much as another vehicle in the range, but as a conceptual turning point: it blends sporty driving, immersive digital interaction, and an interior atmosphere reminiscent of a living room. The exterior lines, both geometric and fluid, embody the "Opposites United" philosophy, where seemingly contradictory elements are integrated into a single design.
Inside the cabin, the steering wheel becomes digital interface It activates different experience modes—Speedster, Dreamer, or Gamer—that adapt the driving, lighting, and sound to the context and the user's state, even when the car is stopped. Gear shift simulation, virtual soundscapes, and augmented reality projected onto the windshield point to a vehicle that also competes in the entertainment and well-being arena.
Around this prototype, Kia unfolds the “Resonance of Opposites” concept with two connected installations: Journey of Reflection, focused on the internal creative process, and Journey of Projection, where six electric prototypes—from the EV2 to the EV9, including the Vision Meta Turismo—materialize those ideas. The journey takes the visitor from intuition to the finished object, reinforcing a narrative in which the brand positions itself as cultural actor within the design ecosystemand not only as a vehicle manufacturer.
In a European context where most manufacturers talk about batteries and range, the focus on the car as an emotional experience opens up an interesting debate about where differentiation will really take place in the coming years.
Invisible kitchens and smart surfaces: Cooking Surface and ABK Group
Kitchen design is also gaining prominence at Milan Design Week with the participation of Cooking Surface In partnership with ABK Group, the brand specializing in invisible induction hobs is reinforcing its international position with a dual presence in the city: the Superstudio space at Via Tortona 27, and the ABK Group Studio showroom at Via Wittgens 12.
At Superstudio, the installation SuperRavioli BistrotCurated by Paola Navone – OTTO Studio, the exhibition blends gastronomy, design, and material experimentation. Several chefs prepare gourmet ravioli live using the new generation of invisible and intelligent Smart Cooking induction, presented here for the first time. The experience transforms the countertop into a continuous surface where the cooking technology visually disappears, prioritizing the aesthetic appeal of the ceramic material.
At ABK Group Studio, the star is the plaque. Cooking 3.0Designed as a system that integrates surface and functionality, following contemporary kitchen design trends, the space also hosts the "Taste the Innovation" showcooking event, aimed at kitchen channel professionals, architects, and interior designers, combining culinary demonstrations, technological explanations, and networking.
The presentation is completed with a renovated large-format area showcasing new surfaces from ABKSTONE and MATERIA, reinforcing the idea that the kitchen is moving towards a a more connected, powerful and intelligent modelIn Europe, where the kitchen often functions as the social hub of the home, this type of proposal points to an ever-increasing integration between design, everyday use and digital tools.
With these actions, Cooking Surface uses the visibility of Milan Design Week to position itself before the international public as a reference in the field of invisible induction, while underlining its commitment to experiences that transform the relationship with the act of cooking.
Spanish design and European habitat: the Appartamento Spagnolo
Within the broad map of Fuorisalone, the Spanish presence is articulated, among other projects, through the Spanish ApartmentThe project, promoted by ICEX and Interiors from Spain at the Palazzo Castiglioni, brings together 22 companies from the home furnishings sector to create a route that serves as a showcase for current design production in Spain.
The apartment is structured into five areas —garden, porch, bedroom, living area and kitchen— that offer a gradual, almost domestic visitinviting visitors to discover each room as if it were a real home. The curation is by Studio Pepe, which coordinates the integration of pieces of very different character into a single, coherent spatial narrative.
Among the brands present are names like APE Grupo, showcasing the Lagomar collection with a ceramic mural designed exclusively by the Italian studio for the occasion, and lighting and furniture companies such as Bover, Sancal, and Arkoslight. The designs combine premium materials, advanced technical solutions, and a keen eye for comfort, aligning with European trends in home furnishings.
Beyond the staging, the Appartamento Spagnolo acts as internationalization platform For participating companies, the project allows foreign distributors, interior designers, and specifiers to experience the products in a context close to real-world use. It also reinforces Spain's perception as a key player in European interior design, with an offering that combines industry, craftsmanship, and an increasingly distinctive aesthetic.
These types of initiatives, integrated into the Milan Design Week program, have become a strategic tool for the Spanish habitat sector to strengthen its position in key markets on the continent.
Taking a step back, what we see these days in the Milan Design Week It is a complex ecosystem where luxury brands, emerging studios, the automotive, culinary and textile industries coexist, all exploring how to design spaces—physical and symbolic—that respond to new ways of living in Europe and beyond; from revived rationalist villas to electric mobility laboratories, the city functions as a common board where languages, materials and experiences are tested that will likely shape much of the creative conversation in the coming years.
