A look back at one of the most memorable moments in Milan this year — a testament to Salone’s enduring influence on international furniture design.
In a week awash with “What’s New” the story of what’s NOT new has a lot of cache. Two of my most memorable exhibits in Milan this year were a re-telling of things past: the newly launched furniture brand Tamart whose designs honor the work originally created by the founder’s parents (you can read my interview with Amos Goldrich here) and the compendious Universo Satellite retrospective showcasing 25 years of emerging contemporary design from SaloneSatalite, the fair’s annual feature highlighting a select group of work by global students under 35.
While conceptual installations draw crowds and conversations, the enduring power of design can also take a more subtle approach. Archival details brought depth to Tamart’s stand, humbly displayed in archival drawers in a historic former garage on Viale Gorizia (part of Design Variations 2024) and did the same at Universo Satellite, where 25 years of emerging design history was generously presented on royal blue backdrops standing the height of the Trienalle’s historical walls.
Giving students a platform at the Salone was a new idea in 1998 when Marva Griffin Wilshire, founder and curator of SaloneSatellite—now a design world celebrity responsible for wrangling this global network of talent—conceived an exhibition resolutely centered around a core idea: putting young people, and the projects they presented, in the center of the dialogues and relationships unfolding at the fair.
“It feels like yesterday when, after discussing young designers together, Manlio Armellini – CEO of Cosmit (at the time, the Organizing Committee of the Italian Furniture Fair) – entrusted me with the task of organizing an event dedicated to them, on the premises of the Salone,” says Griffin Wilshire.
Curated by historian Beppe Finessi and designed by Ricardo Press Bello Dias—whose studio has designed the SaloneSatellite exhibitions since its first edition—the Universo Satallite featured 600 designers from 32 countries and 22 international design schools and universities in 13 countries. A whopping 300 objects were collected to represent the breadth of decades; that in itself is an impressive outcome. Awe-inspiring for the sheer wealth of detail, the exhibition presented the meticulous archive of archival photos, floorplans, artwork, invitations, catalogs, sketches, press cuttings, prototypes, and projects—a testament to Salone's enduring influence on international design.
“We launched this SaloneSatellite into orbit”, the catalog of that first edition reads, “because we believe in young people and the future they represent. Design, which is inherently avant-garde, needs places of reference and encounters. And what would be a more suitable place to communicate young design than the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan?”
If design fairs are the engine, shows like these are the ignition. Sparks flew through the rooms, glimpses of now iconic and familiar products caught through cutouts between displays. Despite some fluctuation through different eras, the show has been fairly consistent in its output, birthing noteworthy designers every year. A strong decade in the nineties launched the careers of designers like Marc Newson, Satyendra Pakhalé, and Francisco Gomez Paz, to name a few. Of the many hundreds of names listed in the exhibition, not all become recognizable. That in itself is a reminder of the stakes.
“We always called it SaloneSatellite, but over the years, it has become a real universe in its own right,” says Finessi. “Full of stories, projects, encounters, and passions, always animated by the dreams and hopes of its young press protagonists, who have become over these twenty-five years the new leaders on the international creativity scene.”
The exhibition concluded with a gallery of design products created as a result of meeting at the SaloneSatalite. Serving as a reminder of the power of these encounters—what is seen, who meets who, and what comes of it—the list included designs conceived by Salone ‘graduates’ who caught the eye of entrepreneurs and companies who would go on to produce their designs, like Sebastian Wrong’s Filigrana Light T2 for Established & Sons, Zanellato/Bortotto’s Mangiafuoco for Moroso, and Sebastian Herkner’s Blume chair for Pedrali.
Both the emerging story of Tamart and the established story of SaloneSatelite captured my attention for the power of legacy in their stories, both the legacy of what has been and what’s to come.