Superdesign Show presents ‘Strange Yet Beautiful’ designs at Milan Design Week 2023

The Milan Design Week, held annually in the Italian city of Milan, opened with its 61^st edition on April 18, 2023. Showcasing innovative and experimental designs from around the world, the design event coalesces exhibits from the Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone. While the former is a trade fair for furniture and furnishings at the Rho Fiera Milano fairgrounds, the latter is a collective event, organised around multiple venues in the city and exhibits avant-garde furniture and industrial designs.

Superstudio's annual event for Milan Design Week 2023 (part of Fuorisalone), the Superdesign Show 2023, exhibits designs by roughly 40 designers, ranging from furniture, lighting, textiles, installations, shoes, and objects under the theme 'Inspiration Innovation Imagination'. Located at Superstudio Piú—Superstudio’s multicultural private exhibiting centre in the erstwhile industrial Tortona district in the city—the Superdesign Show addresses the role of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, Metaverse, chatbots and humanoid robots in the design industry.

Led by Superstudio CEO Gisella Borioli, in collaboration with Giulio Cappellini, within this larger theme, the event includes shows like Today is Already Tomorrow, Asian R-Evolution, Starts of Today and Tomorrow, Under the Art Sign, Other Horizons and Talk, and Strange Yet Beautiful.

Here, STIR lists a few exhibits to watch out for from Strange Yet Beautiful, a show which captures the aesthetic changes in objects as well as furniture, as an expression of freedom, individualism and eclecticism.

Alcarol: Geomorphic

The furniture collection by young Italian brand Alcarol investigates the morphology of earth's elements and planets, through an exploration of shapes that make up the reliefs of different territories.

An investigation that goes beyond the surface reveals the origin, evolution and geological processes that shape and transform matter leads to an understanding of processes and forces which lead to their generation. The furniture, which includes seats, poufs, bookcases and consoles, embodies terrestrial matter with its gaze directed towards space.

Daamstudio: Iconoclastic

Daamstudio reinvents the classic Italian artisanal culture of porcelain dolls to create forms and icons derived from contemporary culture, with an aim of creating an ‘object of cult.’ Originating from an eclectic model, which is stimulated by music, fashion, and in fact contemporary visual culture in general—the studio produces objects, which have a classical base with avant-garde references.

The objects, handcrafted by an artisanal company known for its prowess in the 18^th century craft of Capodimonte figurines, uses clay, a natural material, which is economic yet noble. These moulded figurines in a porcelain finish are made from a translucent soft paste, which creates a particularly clear, warm, white covered with a mildly lustrous glaze. Each piece is made to order and in limited edition.

The Muse collection of porcelain ladies is inspired by Greek Muses, which are re-appropriated with an innovative language and symbolic codes to create new feminine archetypes of idealism. The first ideal ladies, Urania, Terpsichore, and Thalia, are each charged with a symbolism of visual references, which hint at illusions that reflect unrealisable dreams of the mind. Hand-crafted by master sculptor, the pieces are individually decorated with paint and graphic techniques.

The Iconoclastic collection also reinvents the sneaker—one of the fetishes of contemporary street culture—to create a timeless object, elevated to the status of a cult object. The sneaker is stripped of its real function and transformed into a pure object of devotion.

As such, it is a protagonist of marketing, achieving its iconic status through a complex process of co-branding with fashion houses. Its different variants are an homage to symbols of visual expressions of contemporary pop culture. Each sneaker is numbered and made in a limited edition.

Karbony: spaces designed by threads, decorated with shadows

Carlo Cappellotto of Karbony, an architectural designer in Pornaro, creates small architectures from carbon fibres. The objects thus produced are a result of a revolutionary encounter between a primordial material found in nature and a contemporary discipline in society. Derived through a process of research and development, which enables carbon fibres to be woven into long-lasting structures, Karbony creates tables, seats and stools, windscreens and dividers, decorations and light sources, for indoor and outdoor living.

Planetario, Piuma and Arianna, which constitute the latest collection for the design week, are objects made of carbon fibre. Planetario, a lighting fixture, is designed as an infinite system of orbits that envelops a spherical form. Inside, a light source alludes to a body, which is illuminated by its own light.

Piuma is a chair created from a single stretched and woven fibre, and weighs only 520 gms.

Arianna is an object of small architecture, which functions as a table, inspired by the famous Ariadne’s String, such that the top of the table is bound to the base without any interruptive joints. Additionally, shadow is the main theme of the project, a projection that illustrates the objects in their surrounding space.

Metaoda: Out of the Box

The show features the works of Croatian designers, who use Slovakian oak with an aim to create furniture items with an innovative design language and methodology, such that it pushes the material as well as technological boundaries.

In addition to furniture collections that include beds, chairs, lounge chairs, sideboards, sofas and tables, the design exhibition constitutes six box frames, which support furniture pieces which are made to float as if without gravity.

Pollini Home, Sapiens Design Studio: Beyond the Edge

Designed by Alessandro Mattias and Gloria Gianatti of Milan-based Sapiens Design Studio, the furniture collected is created using the innovative process of thermoforming, which enables large slabs to get a curvature.

Through a composition of cylindrical elements, and curved and connected lines, the products overcome the limitations of flat slabs. The collection includes a sideboard, a modular seat, a wash basin and a shower tray.

The Strange Yet Beautiful by Superdesign show not only exhibits a range of products and objects, but also questions how functions and services will change with respect to emerging technologies. In its Unexpected Objects section, with a theme focusing on surprise, innovation and non-banality—in addition to Daamstudio, and Pollini Home—designer Sebastiano Bottos of Bottos Design creates a folding wooden screen, that encapsulates a three-dimensional effect by using stepped concentric rings on the surface.

Tile manufacturer Unuslab and Fluente, through the installation Terre evolute. Evolution of craft workshops, produce ceramic surfaces, by hand as well as 3-D printing technologies, using 10 colours of stoneware body.

On the other hand, Poliuritano è experiments with polyurethane foam to create seating, acoustic panels and furniture accessories, while Pelma uses a sustainable and recyclable derivative of foam.

Paul Kelley's Re-make, Re-model, Re-imagine project is a collection of 350 magnetic cubes, coated with laminates created by Abet Laminati, which are designed as modular units. Laboratorio San Rocco experiments with the engobe technique to create engraved vases in ceramic.

The Strange yet Beautiful show, thus, uses the platform of the Milan Design Week to exhibit design and artworks that not only showcase experiments in processes and forms but also materials and technology.

STIR’s coverage of Milan Design Week 2023 showcases the best exhibitions, studios, designers, installations, brands, and special projects to look out for. Explore Euroluce 2023 and all the design districts—5Vie Art and Design, Brera Design District, Fuorisalone, Isola Design District, Tortona District, and Milano Design District—with us.