Holding only a strange, spangled frosted glass sculpture and two shell-like armchairs—inviting and at the same time foreboding in form—in a blood-red hued room: Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino’s installation for Salone del Mobile.Milano’s 2025 edition presents the case for a liminal architecture. Opulent yet sparse, the womb-like fleshy red walls of La dolce attesa (The Sweet Waiting) define a space in which nothing seems to happen. A sense of tension pervades the room, which is largely empty but filled with the serene, rhythmic sound of a beating heart.

The immersive installation for Milan Design Week was conceived by Sorrentino with the renowned scenographer Margherita Palli and is accompanied by an entrancing soundscape by award-winning sound artist Max Casacci. "Opening the doors of the Salone del Mobile to Paolo Sorrentino is a profound emotion," stated Maria Porro, president of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, in an official release that announced the commission. "With La dolce attesa, he invites us to live an experience that affects us all closely.”

As with the many films under his repertoire—complex, overarching reflections on universal emotions set in meticulously extravagant locations—Sorrentino’s waiting room is the manifestation of the feeling of waiting itself. The director describes this as “not an interval but life’s most serious time” in the official release. As he explains, the 'waiting' in La dolce attesa corresponds specifically to a person waiting for a medical response, a moment of anguish for an awaited result. These medical spaces, as Sorrentino laments, are often oppressive in their layout, characterised by “white walls, uncomfortable chairs, monitors flashing up numbers, grumpy employees”.

With his installation design, the acclaimed Italian director hopes to reconfigure the harsh environments of waiting areas. Instead of being cruel reminders of a lack of certainty, his concept uses spatial gestures to suspend visitors into a sense of hypnosis so “waiting can become less painful”. There is a sense of the uncanny accompanying this idea that comes through in the installation. While the sparseness of the room feels jarring, the reassuring heartbeat along with the warmth exuded by the lighting design and the colour of the walls are alluring. Much like Sorrentino’s films, the space is a play on contrasts and emotional suspense.

To conceive of such a quiet resolution to the time spent before or even after the almost manic energy of Milan’s Rho Fiera exhibition centre, where all of the design intelligentsia inevitably gathers every April, is a noteworthy feat. To Sorrentino, the idea was also to extend an invitation to rethink how we spend time in an era that commodifies it and prioritises instantaneity. Sorrentino turns instead to an activity (if one could think of waiting as an activity) where we do nothing, which is defined exactly by its idleness.

For the installation at the dynamic design fair, the idea of waiting is two-fold. On the one hand, waiting is a moment in time filled with anguish and uncertainty, as we anticipate news of something to happen, as time fails to pass. On the other hand, to wait means to occupy a liminal condition in time and space that ceases to exist once things are set into motion. It means to lie in pursuit. The condition is doubly charged: a time of anticipation and a space for crystallisation of action. Waiting orders our lives in so many ways, as Sorrentino reminds us.

Where this liminal moment in time and space is inevitably filled with restlessness, an almost desperate need to make something happen, it is also a state of potentiality. This is exactly why Sorrentino attributes a quality of sweetness (dolce) to the feeling: because time transforms chaos into something meaningful, and transformation, conversely, requires patience and a willingness to wait. The operatic set design by the award-winning designer Palli, beautifully complemented by Casacci’s soundscape, brings this deeply contemplative notion into material form. The steady beating of the heart, like the passage of time, constructs space. A tangible presence emanating from the glass object at the centre of the installation, the space between two notes of the soundscape stretches and contracts and stretches again with the passing of each second spent at the edge of something about to happen.

The design is a vital reminder that time and a sense of emptiness and release (symbolised by the set design) are essential to transformation. Sorrentino explains, “Our waiting room aspires to be something else. It doesn't force you to sit still, but lets you go…Your eye is drawn to a jumble of frosted glass that hides and distorts the only element that, assuming it continues to beat, can prolong our life. This is the heart. Hidden, mysterious, semi-invisible, but there nonetheless, reminding us that all is not yet over.” The sweet wait has just begun.

Keep up with STIR’s coverage of Milan Design Week 2025, where we spotlight the most compelling exhibitions, presentations and installations from top studios, designers and brands. Dive into the highlights of Euroluce 2025 and explore all the design districts—Fuorisalone, 5Vie, Brera, Isola, Durini and beyond—alongside the faceted programme of Salone del Mobile.Milano this year.