Rotterdam-based PLNLstudio transforms a former sewage tank into the Trommel no.4 apartment in Amsterdam. This flat is located on the first floor of a unique building designed by SeARCH architects; a striking example of adaptive reuse, where former concrete storage tanks from a sewage treatment plant have been transformed into contemporary living spaces. From the outset, the design approach aimed to embrace the building’s unconventional geometry and raw materiality, integrating the apartment into its architectural context. The material palette reflects this intent with concrete floors, custom-built furniture that echoes the tones of the window frames, and reflective stainless-steel elements that bring both light and functionality into the space. Together, these components form a cohesive interior that complements the original structure. Given the compact footprint, the layout was developed with great care. Several iterations were explored to arrive at a configuration that responds precisely to the client’s needs. Creating a comfortable workspace and maximizing storage were key priorities.

all images by Riccardo De Vecchi

Curved geometries and Diffused Light define TROMMEL no.4

The final solution provides generous, well-integrated storage while preserving a sense of openness, achieved through built-in wardrobes and discreet compartments beneath a custom-designed seating area. The seating follows the curvature of the wall, making the most of the available space and offering a more efficient use of square metres than standard rectangular options. Access to natural light was another important consideration. Daylight was introduced not only into the main living areas, but also into typically enclosed spaces such as the bathroom and walk-in closet. Glass doors and internal windows were incorporated to allow light to flow throughout the apartment while maintaining privacy through semi-transparent glazing with an integrated metal grid. Although the ceiling height is modest, these interventions create a surprisingly generous sense of space. The project by architecture and interior design practice PLNLstudio owes its success to the open-mindedness of the clients, who trusted the design process and contributed several excellent ideas of their own. It stands as a strong example of how thoughtful design and clear collaboration can deliver a high-quality result, even with a modest budget.

Trommel no.4 apartment by PLNLstudio in Amsterdam

a former sewage tank converted into a living space

stainless steel elements introduce reflection and light

material palette balances rawness and precision

adaptive reuse within a concrete storage structure

custom furniture reflects the tones of window frames

semi-transparent glazing maintains privacy while diffusing light

daylight reaches the bathroom and walk-in closet

glass doors allow light to extend across rooms

built-in storage integrated throughout the apartment

spatial efficiency achieved through custom design solutions

project info:

name: TROMMEL no.4
architect: PLNLstudio | @plnl.studio

location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

photographer: Riccardo De Vecchi | @riccardodevecchi.photo

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

The post former sewage tank transforms into minimal geometric apartment in amsterdam appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Minulle Lab is an interior and furniture design project developed by Adam Terlanda for an analog photography showroom and laboratory in Bratislava. The composition of the space is based on selecting heavy structural elements like beams, steel grates, metal rods, and ratchet straps, and transforming them into furniture design pieces that are trying to find balance in unexpected ways.

The project sits within a larger studio complex run by a community of young analog photography enthusiasts, housing a photo studio, grading room, office, film lab, and the showroom. As a young collective driven by original ideas, aiming to broaden the analog community in Slovakia’s capital, constrained by a tight budget, the challenge was to build a space unified through one-of-a-kind furniture without the cost of it.

all images by Adam Terlanda

Adam Terlanda brings an industrial feel into Minulle Photo Lab

The whole composition is based on selecting heavy structural elements like beams, steel grates, metal rods, and ratchet straps, and transforming them into pieces that achieve balance in non-conventional ways. Through this project, designer Adam Terlanda explores the question of whether the industrial could feel structurally elegant by applying principles of mechanical logic and gravitational forces. Minulle Lab was officially opened in July 2025, through a launch event combining a photography exhibition with an alternative music listening session, bringing together diverse groups from Bratislava’s alternative youth scene. 

Adam Terlanda designs Minulle Lab interior in Bratislava

industrial components reconfigured as furniture elements

steel grates and rods define the spatial composition

furniture pieces balance through mechanical logic

ratchet straps introduce tension as a structural principle

heavy materials arranged in precise equilibrium

circular mirrors frame fragmented interior views

a central table suspended through tensioned cables

structural elements double as display furniture

raw materials remain exposed and unrefined

industrial hardware becomes a visual language

furniture pieces constructed from standard components

an interior defined by tension, weight, and balance

project info:

name: Minulle Lab
interior & furniture designer: Adam Terlanda | @adamterlanda

3D design: Martin Kuchárik | @_martinkoch

furniture design collaborator: Sebastian Komáček | @sebastiankomacek

client: Minulle Lab | @minulle_lab

photographer: Adam Terlanda

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

The post steel grates suspended from ratchet straps turn into furniture for bratislava photo lab appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

There’s an atmospheric air surrounding the images of imagined installations that Marius Troy generates on Midjourney, from the canopy of fabrics in gradients of colors, suspended over a platform where a handful of figures stand waiting, to the visible communities naturally drawn to the sculptural works. For the Norwegian artist and creative guide, who has spent more than twenty years at the intersection of art, technology, his speculative and imagined art installations put out a soul, one that lives and breathes, even so subtly and as an underlying theme. 

These installations are realized, as Marius Troy generates them using AI image tools, mainly Midjourney. The process is visible and the output is visual, but the experience feels physical. He has described the way he creates, and that is through the feeling of already being there, vibrating on that frequency. To put it simply, the artist and creative is mapping out the inner states and our body’s consciousness and translating them visually.

Polychrome | all images courtesy of Marius Troy

Artworks as response to human disconnections

The artist and creative has built platforms, led large-scale installations, worked with Dior, Nike, and Oakley and has lived in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, and Oslo. He has also taught at art schools for nearly a decade, and coaches over a hundred creatives through the specific set of conditions that define the contemporary working life: disconnection, decision paralysis, pace that can’t be sustained. He knows these conditions from the inside, he says, and his practice, including the imagined installations he has been releasing through his Midjourney Sessions series, is a direct response to them, as seen even in Polychrome.

In this imagined art installation, Marius Troy designs a vast canopy of fabric in horizontal bands of color – violet at the outer edges, moving through deep red, through coral, through orange, through yellow, to near-white at the center – and these fabric-like structure is suspended from the roof of a spacious building, either a museum hall or a transit platform, and lit from within or below so the floor becomes a mirror and the color doubles downward. The people beneath the sculptural walk languidly walk, perhaps choosing to enjoy the atmosphere instead of rushing.

there’s an atmospheric air surrounding the images Marius Troy generates on Midjourney

Shelters that gather communities at once

There’s another imagined art installation by Marius Troy, and it’s called Elementi. Somehow, it shares the similar design from Polychrome, which is the use of the underground. Here, the floor is sand, and the light is the warm amber of earth-filtered sun. At the center of the space, a circular structure of floor-to-ceiling fabric encircles an oval of light, the shape of a moon or a sun, seen from below, hanging or perhaps drawn down from above. Footprints cross the sand in every direction. When the crowd is shown, they stand  where all the fabric converges upward into a single file, the way cloth radiates from the center of a billowing parachute. The artist describes Elementi as an installation that brings the elements into a vast indoor space to calm the nervous system and invite reflection, exploration, and connection, evoking stillness in both the environment and the people within it.

The installation called Soft places a luminous hemisphere inside a Beaux-Arts hall, which resembles the Grand Palais, or an equivalent, over a rectangular pool of water. The dome of fabric hangs from the ceiling and curves downward, stopping just above the water’s surface, and the reflected light ripples across the pool and climbs the stone columns on both sides. People sit on the edge of the pool, silhouetted, facing the light, while others stand at a distance. Marius Troy describes Soft as a contemplation of softness in space and atmospheres, an exploration of what happens physiologically when we occupy a space that doesn’t have weight and friction, metaphorically hinting that while the hemisphere is large, it isn’t heavy; that it glows rather than shines.

these installations are realized, as Marius Troy generates them using AI image tools

L’Abri Doux, French for the soft shelter, comes next, showing fabric architecture that becomes landscape. In one view, a cylindrical column of vertical threads or fine cords drops from a circular aperture in a vaulted ceiling, lit from within so the threads glow and the base of the column spreads onto a sand floor, where two figures sit in silhouette. In another view, the space is vast, a fabric structure so large it reads as a building, with a rounded arched opening at the center where amber light comes through and dozens of figures sit or lie on the sand floor in small groups. The title names what the space does because it shelters the community it houses, softly and gently.

Entre Deux, or between two, places a sphere the size of a building between the columns of the Panthéon in Paris, suspended at portal height, lit from within so it glows salmon pink as the city sky behind it fades at dusk. Below it, the crowd gathers. Nobody is passing through, as everyone has stopped. In the second image in this series, the scale drops, where a stone arch on the banks of the Seine frames a small interior: fabric draped from the arch, a pendant lamp at the center, six or seven people sitting on cushioned seating at the base. The Seine is visible through the arch opening, alluding to a room without walls, a shelter without a building, a fire without a fire.

the artist has described the way he creates, and that is through the feeling of already being there

What connects these imagined art installations is the same ethos that Marium Troy has been trying to say in every format his career has taken. The systems people live inside, whether that’s the pace, the noise, or the constant digital weather, produce a kind of damage: disconnection from the body, from other people, from the simple fact of being in a room with other humans and nowhere particular to be. His imagined installations are not proposals for public art programs, but he hopes they demonstrate a condition that already exists, just expressed in the language of fabric, light, colors, and a bit of sand, gathering people altogether within speculative tranquil shelters.

view of Elementi

the project is an an imagined art installation bringing the elements into a vast indoor space

the visual aims to calm the nervous system

view of Magma

Magma is the Earth’s subconscious leaking through fault lines

the project explores the depth of the subconscious

view of L’Abri Doux

the project shows fabric architecture that becomes landscape

a cylindrical column of vertical threads or fine cords drops from a circular aperture in a vaulted ceiling

amber light spills through a rounded arched opening at the center

view of Entre Deux

the project creates an interior atmosphere within public space

through warmth, light, softness, and scale these works explore which sensory and emotional qualities

the artist imagines the spaces as a temporary shelter for the nervous system to soften

the artist believes these are shelters that belong to everyone

project info:

artist: Marius Troy | @mariustroy

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The Scaly House, designed by Alexander Tischler LLC, is located on a waterfront plot in the Tver region, Russia, along the Volga River. The house features larch shingles, also known as shakes, on both facades and the roof. These shingles have a textured surface that will naturally weather over time to a silvery gray, allowing the building to integrate with its surrounding environment. Their overlapping pattern evokes the scales of a river fish, which informs the design concept of the home.

The building is oriented north toward the Volga River, with minimal south-facing windows. Skylights were incorporated to introduce daylight into the living areas, providing illumination during the day and revealing the night sky clearly in areas removed from urban light pollution.

all visuals by Dimitri Rimss

The layout by Alexander Tischler links Interiors and Landscape

The property, located in the Tver region, sits on a waterfront plot bordered by the Volga on one side and a small inlet on the other. Access is via a quiet cul-de-sac, ensuring privacy. The house, conceived by architect Alexander Tischler, consists of three primary volumes that organize the living spaces: the first contains the kitchen and living room; the second, the master bedroom with a walk-in closet and bathroom; and the third, two children’s bedrooms. Each volume is positioned to capture views of the river and garden, with windows oriented to frame specific aspects of the landscape.

A central hallway links the main volumes and incorporates secondary spaces, including a study, guest bedroom, guest bathroom, and utility rooms. A large window at the end of the hallway visually extends the interior into the surrounding landscape. The open hallway flows directly into the kitchen-living room area, which is designed without doors to enhance continuity and preserve sightlines through the study toward the garden.

The private zones, including the bedrooms, are positioned away from the entrance and road, separated by the study and guest suite. Ceilings in the master bedroom, children’s rooms, and kitchen-living room reach up to six meters, while skylights further enhance daylight penetration. A corner window in the living room frames the confluence of the Volga and inlet, while the children’s bedrooms are oriented to avoid visual interference with the main living space.

the Scaly House by Alexander Tischler LLC on a Volga waterfront plot

Dark Facades contrast Light Interiors in a Material Dialogue

The house presents a dark, windowless facade to the street, with a minimal fence and a canopy for cars and bicycles. This canopy extends along a path past the study toward the garden and river. Sections of the facade and the wall adjacent to the entrance are clad in dark porcelain stoneware, contrasting with the lighter-shingled volumes. This material differentiation reflects the building’s functional divisions, distinguishing utility areas from living spaces.

The arrangement of the kitchen and living room forms a small courtyard that screens part of the garden from the road, providing a private outdoor area. Interior design was integrated into the architectural process, ensuring a cohesive relationship between spatial layout, material selection, and functional requirements. From the riverfront, the house evokes a clustered gable-roofed fishing village, reinforcing the connection between the building and its waterfront context.

facades and roof clad in textured larch shingles

overlapping shingles evoke the scales of a river fish

access via a quiet cul-de-sac ensures privacy

dark, windowless street-facing facade contrasts with light-shingled volumes

three primary volumes organize the kitchen-living room, master suite, and children’s rooms

from the riverfront, the house recalls a clustered gable-roofed fishing village

project info:

name: The Scaly House
architect: Alexander Tischler LLC | @atischler

creative director: Karen Karapetian

lead project architect: Tatiana Cherkasova

lead project designer: Diana Besedina

architectural visualizer: Dimitri Rimss

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

The post a cluster of gable-roofed homes clad in larch wood shingles unfolds along volga river appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

April opens with a global array of exhibitions which trace how artists and designers engage with systems in flux, from ecology and technology to language and space. In Milan, Fondazione Prada presents Cao Fei’s Dash, a multimedia exploration of smart agriculture and its social and environmental implications. In Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof hosts Shilpa Gupta’s What Still Holds, where fragmented language and participatory works question truth, censorship, and collective memory.

Major retrospectives revisit the role of art across time and scale. At Fondation Louis Vuitton, Calder: Dreaming in Balance brings nearly 300 works by Alexander Calder into dialogue with Frank Gehry’s architecture, while in Prague, Kunsthalle Praha presents William Kentridge’s The Battle Between YES and NO, spanning four decades of work and anchored by a new installation reflecting on ambiguity and history.

Elsewhere, shows foreground participation and expanded authorship. In Milan, Pirelli HangarBicocca presents Rirkrit Tiravanija’s The House That Jack Built, where architecture is activated through collective use, while in Atlanta, the High Museum of Art revisits Isamu Noguchi’s multidisciplinary practice through a major design retrospective.

Some of the exhibitions highlighted in earlier radars and listings on our dedicated events guide remain on view, giving designboom readers more time to encounter them around the globe.

MARTIN MARGIELA AT KUDAN HOUSE

Martin Margiela at Kudan House marks the first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan by Martin Margiela, presenting a comprehensive view of his artistic practice since departing fashion in 2008. On view in Tokyo, the exhibition explores recurring themes of the body, absence, time, and transformation, with works spanning collage, painting, drawing, sculpture, assemblage, and video.

Installed within Kudan House, a 1927 Spanish-style residence and registered cultural property, the exhibition unfolds across a sequence of domestic rooms, preserving traces of everyday life. Margiela’s scenography embraces intimacy and observation. Emphasizing process, imperfection, and anonymity, the exhibition invites visitors to move through the house as both viewers and participants in open-ended exploration.

name: Martin Margiela at Kudan House
artist: Martin Margiela
museum: Kudan House
location: Tokyo, Japan
dates: April 11th — April 19th, 2026

image courtesy the artist and Lafayette Anticipations

Ruth Asawa: a Retrospective

Guggenheim Bilbao presents Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, a comprehensive exhibition spanning six decades of work by Ruth Asawa. Organized across ten sections, the exhibition brings together her iconic suspended wire sculptures alongside drawings, paintings, prints, and archival material, offering a full view of her multidisciplinary practice.

Tracing Asawa’s development from her early studies at Black Mountain College to her later work in San Francisco, the exhibition highlights her sustained exploration of form, space, and material. Integrating art with education and community engagement, the presentation reflects her lifelong commitment to experimentation and her influence as both an artist and advocate.

name: Ruth Asawa: Retrospective
artist: Ruth Asawa
museum: Guggenheim Bilbao
location: Bilbao, Spain
dates: until September 13th, 2026

Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.427, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form), 1953. image © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., photo: Maris Hutchinson, courtesy David Zwirner

Julie Mehretu: Kairos / Hauntological Variations

Julie Mehretu: Kairos / Hauntological Variations at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw marks the first presentation in Poland of Julie Mehretu. The exhibition takes its title from the ancient Greek concept of kairos, a decisive moment, alongside Jacques Derrida’s idea of hauntology, where the present remains shaped by unresolved histories.

Bringing together works from the late 1990s to today, the exhibition traces Mehretu’s evolving practice across painting, drawing, and printmaking. Layering references from maps, media imagery, and sociopolitical events, her compositions register contemporary global conditions, presented here as a continuous, expansive body of work that reveals the depth and trajectory of her approach.

name: Julie Mehretu: Kairos / Hauntological Variations
artist: Julie Mehretu
museum: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
location: Warsaw, Poland
dates: until August 30th, 2026

Julie Mehretu, detail of Ghosthymn (after the Raft), 2019-2021. Tom Powel Imaging. courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York © Julie Mehretu

Kengo Kuma/KKAA: Earth / Tree

Inspired by the Japanese concept of komorebi — sunlight filtering through tree canopies — Earth / Tree by Kengo Kuma/KKAA transforms the sensory experience of being beneath a tree into an immersive architectural installation. Presented at Copenhagen Contemporary, the project explores shelter as a bodily memory, inviting visitors into a space shaped by wood and brick, materials chosen for their tactile qualities and deep cultural histories across Japanese and Nordic traditions.

Developed under the direction of Yuki Ikeguchi, the installation emphasizes light, air, and shadow as active elements, engaging the senses beyond vision through scent, texture, and movement. At its core, Earth | Tree extends beyond observation: a central workshop area encourages visitors to build, shape, and experiment with materials themselves, framing architecture as a shared, intuitive act of making.

name: Kengo Kuma/KKAA: Earth / Tree
architect: Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA)
museum: Copenhagen Contemporary
location: Copenhagen, Denmark
dates: until Februray 21st, 2027

Kengo Kuma/KKAA: Earth / Tree, image courtesy Copenhagen Contemporary

Tomás Saraceno: Interwoven

Interwoven, the first large-scale solo exhibition in Taiwan by Tomás Saraceno, invites visitors into an immersive environment shaped by webs of life spanning air, spiders, clouds, and cosmic matter. Through installations that combine spider/web architectures and floating structures made from reused materials, the exhibition explores interconnected systems across ecological and planetary scales.

Rooted in long-term collaboration with Indigenous communities in Salinas Grandes, Argentina, the exhibition foregrounds eco-social justice and alternative knowledge systems. Moving between microscopic and atmospheric perspectives, Interwoven reflects on how technology, environment, and society intersect today, proposing new ways of understanding coexistence in a world shaped by climate change and extractive economies.

name: Tomás Saraceno: Interwoven
artist: Tomás Saraceno
museum: New Taipei City Art Museum
location: Taipei, Taiwan
dates: until September 5th, 2026

Tomás Saraceno: Interwoven, installation view, photo by Hsuan Lang Ling & Lin Guan-ming, courtesy New Taipei City Art Museum

Isamu Noguchi: ‘I am not a designer’

High Museum of Art presents Isamu Noguchi: ‘I am not a designer’, the artist’s first major design retrospective in nearly twenty-five years, opening in spring 2026. Bringing together nearly 200 works across sculpture, furniture, lighting, stage design, and landscape, the exhibition traces the expansive practice of Isamu Noguchi, highlighting his approach to shaping space across disciplines.

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Playscapes in Atlanta, the exhibition includes rarely seen models, industrial designs for Herman Miller and Knoll, and collaborations with figures such as Martha Graham. Large-scale installations and archival material emphasize Noguchi’s interest in function, play, and public space, framing his work as a continuous exploration of how design can shape shared environments.

name: Isamu Noguchi: ‘I am not a designer’
artist: Isamu Noguchi
museum: High Museum of Art
location: Atlanta, Georgia
dates: April 10th — August 2nd, 2026

Louise Dahl-Wolfe (American, 1895–1989), Isamu Noguchi (detail), 1955. © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents. © 2026 The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Dash

Fondazione Prada presents Dash, a new multimedia project by Cao Fei in Milan. Combining photography, video installation, virtual reality, documentary, and archival material, the exhibition explores the global transformation of agriculture through technology, focusing on both its possibilities and contradictions.

Developed through three years of research across rural regions in China and Southeast Asia, Dash examines the rise of smart agriculture amid climate instability, labor shortages, and shifting rural economies. The project reflects on how algorithms and automation reshape traditional knowledge, land use, and the relationship between rural and urban life.

Marking a new phase in Cao Fei’s long-term investigation into technology and society, the exhibition turns from industrial systems to agriculture as a foundational human practice. Through an immersive, layered presentation, Dash invites visitors to consider how technology, nature, and human experience intersect today, and what new forms of coexistence may emerge.

name: Dash
artist: Cao Fei
museum: Fondazione Prada
location: Milan, Italy
dates: April 9th — September 28th, 2026

Cao Fei Dash (still), 2026. courtesy the artist, Vitamin Creative Space, and Sprüth Magers

CALDER. RÊVER EN ÉQUILIBRE

Fondation Louis Vuitton presents Calder. Rêver en équilibre (Dreaming in Balance), a major exhibition marking the centenary of Alexander Calder’s arrival in France and fifty years since his death. Spanning five decades of work, the exhibition traces his practice from the late 1920s — when his Cirque Calder captivated the Paris avant-garde — to the monumental sculptures that reshaped public art in the 1960s and 1970s.

Bringing together nearly 300 works, including mobiles, stabiles, wire portraits, paintings, drawings, and jewelry, the exhibition unfolds chronologically across the foundation’s galleries and grounds. Installed within Frank Gehry’s architecture, Calder’s suspended forms activate the space through movement, light, and balance. The presentation also situates his work within a broader artistic context, with contributions from figures such as Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, and Pablo Picasso.

name: Calder. Rêver en équilibre
artist: Alexander Calder
museum: Fondation Louis Vuitton
location: Paris, France
dates: April 15th — August 16th, 2026

ALEXANDER CALDER, ‘Dispersed Objects with Brass Gong’, 1948. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / ADAGP, Paris. courtesy Calder Foundation, New York / Art Resource, New York

Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea presents Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible, a solo exhibition by Damien Hirst. Bringing together over 50 works across sculpture, painting, and installation — many shown in Asia for the first time — the exhibition offers a focused view of Hirst’s practice.

The presentation includes key series such as Natural History, Spin paintings, Medicine Cabinets, Cherry Blossoms, as well as Spot and Butterfly works. Together, they trace Hirst’s sustained engagement with themes of science, belief, beauty, and mortality across his career.

name: Nothing Is True ButEverything Is Possible
artist: Damien Hirst
museum: The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA)
location: Seoul, South Korea
dates: until June 28th, 2026

Damien Hirst photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. all rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2023

Can Love Be a Photograph

Kunstmuseum Den Haag presents Can Love Be a Photograph, a major retrospective marking 40 years of collaboration by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Tracing their partnership since 1986, the exhibition brings together a wide selection of works that reflect their shared life and evolving practice.

Positioned between fashion and art, Inez & Vinoodh have shaped contemporary image-making through their early use of digital manipulation and their distinctive visual language, where familiarity meets unease. Alongside their artistic work, the exhibition also acknowledges their longstanding collaborations with major fashion houses and portraits of figures including Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Barack Obama, Brad Pitt, and Billie Eilish.

name: Can Love Be a Photograph
artist: Inez & Vinoodh
museum: Kunstmuseum Den Haag
location: Hague, The Netherlands
dates: until September 6th, 2026

Inez & Vinoodh, Think Love, 2025, shot on Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max. image courtesy Kunstmuseum Den Haag

The Antwerp Six

MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp marks the 40th anniversary of the Antwerp Six with a major exhibition in 2026, the first to bring together all six designers in a single institutional show. Tracing their shared origins at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the exhibition follows the moment in 1986 when Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, and Marina Yee presented their collections in London and launched their international careers.

Bringing together archival material and key works, the exhibition reflects on how their independent practices collectively positioned Antwerp as a global fashion capital, and how their influence continues to shape contemporary design today.

name: The Antwerp Six
artists: Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, Marina Yee
museum: MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp
location: Antwerp, Belgium
dates: until January 17th, 2027

The Antwerp Six, image courtesy MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp

The Battle Between YES and NO

Kunsthalle Praha presents The Battle Between YES and NO, a major exhibition by South African artist William Kentridge. Bringing together early charcoal animations, theatrical installations, recent video works, and sculpture, the exhibition offers a broad view of Kentridge’s practice, alongside a new work created for Prague.

Anchored by A Letter to Felice (2026), a tribute to Franz Kafka, the exhibition unfolds as a spatial collage, reflecting Kentridge’s ongoing exploration of memory, contradiction, and political history. Drawing on themes of migration, colonial legacies, and uncertainty, the presentation emphasizes process, improvisation, and the studio as a site of experimentation, inviting visitors into a layered and open-ended engagement with the artist’s work.

name: The Battle Between YES and NO
artist: William Kentridge
museum: Kunsthalle Praha
location: Prague, Czech Republic 
dates: April 16th — September 27th, 2026

William Kentridge: The Battle Between YES and NO. image courtesy Kunsthalle Praha

Anna Maria Maiolino – Poetic Earth

MAAT – Museum of Art Architecture and Technology presents a solo exhibition by Anna Maria Maiolino, tracing key moments in her practice from the 1970s to today. Bringing together drawings, photographs, and videos from her early career alongside her later clay works, the exhibition highlights her exploration of the body, materiality, and the political context of Brazil’s military dictatorship.

At the center of the exhibition are large-scale clay sculptures created on site, the largest of her career, which transform the Oval Gallery into a sensory environment. Shaping the movement of visitors through the space, these works emphasize process, gesture, and the evolving nature of matter, inviting a tactile and poetic engagement with Maiolino’s practice.

name: Anna Maria Maiolino – Poetic Earth
artist: Anna Maria Maiolino
museum: MAAT – Museum of Art Architecture and Technology 
location: Lisbon, Portugal
dates: until August 31st, 2026

view of the exhibition courtesy Anna Maria Maiolino — Poetic Earth, MAAT, 2026. image: Pedro Tropa, courtesy EDP Foundation

Shilpa Gupta. What Still Holds

Hamburger Bahnhof presents What Still Holds, a solo exhibition by Shilpa Gupta, centered on the monumental installation Truth (2022–25). Composed of fragmented, oversized letters, the work invites visitors to move through language itself, questioning how truth is shaped, obscured, or controlled within systems of power.

Bringing together eleven works from the past two decades across sculpture, sound, drawing, and participatory formats, the exhibition explores themes of censorship, borders, and collective memory. Highlights include Listening Air, featuring resistance songs, 100 Hand Drawn Maps of My Country, which reimagines national boundaries from memory, and Someone Else, a library of anonymously authored texts.

Presented in dialogue with works by Joseph Beuys and as part of the museum’s 30th anniversary program, the exhibition reflects on the role of art in questioning authority and sustaining critical thought in conditions of uncertainty.

name: Shilpa Gupta. What Still Holds
artist: Shilpa Gupta
museum: Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
location: Berlin, Germany
dates: until January 3rd, 2027

Shilpa Gupta. What Still Holds, Ausstellungsansicht / exhibition view, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin, 2026. photo by Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Luca Girardini

Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito continuous present

In collaboration with Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Triennale Milano presents a monographic exhibition dedicated to Andrea Branzi, a central figure in late 20th- and early 21st-century design culture. Framed through the perspective of Toyo Ito, the exhibition brings together installations, objects, and drawings to explore key themes in Branzi’s work, including fragility, hybridity, and planetary coexistence.

Structured within a biographical narrative, the exhibition also revisits Branzi’s longstanding relationship with both institutions and highlights major projects such as No-Stop City (1969–72), a foundational exploration of the contemporary metropolis and radical design thinking.

name: Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito
artist: Andrea Branzi
museum: Milano Triennale
location: Milan, Italy
dates: until October 4th, 2026

Andrea Branzi, photo by Emanuele Zamponi

Tom Wesselmann: Seascapes, Still Lifes, and Nudes

Gagosian presents Tom Wesselmann: Seascapes, Still Lifes, and Nudes, marking the first solo exhibition in Greece of Tom Wesselmann. Bringing together key paintings and drawings from across his career, the exhibition highlights his distinctive approach to traditional genres through the lens of Pop art.

A central figure of the movement, Wesselmann reworked subjects such as interiors, landscapes, and the nude by merging modernist figuration with imagery drawn from mass culture. A highlight of the presentation is Great American Nude #1 (1961), which launched his iconic series, reflecting his concept of ‘erotic simplification’ through bold color, flat form, and references to artists such as Henri Matisse.

name: Tom Wesselmann: Seascapes, Still Lifes, and Nudes
artist: Tom Wesselmann
museum: Gagosian Athens
location: Athens, Greece
dates: until May 30th, 2026

Little Seascape #3 (1965–68), Tom Wesselmann. artwork © the Estate of Tom Wesselmann/licensed by ARS/VAGA

Rirkrit Tiravanija: The House That Jack Built

Pirelli HangarBicocca presents The House That Jack Built, a major retrospective by Rirkrit Tiravanija, curated by Lucia Aspesi and Vicente Todolí. Spanning over three decades, the exhibition focuses on Tiravanija’s exploration of architecture as a social and participatory practice.

Featuring the largest presentation to date of his architectural works — many inspired by modernist figures such as Le Corbusier and Jean Prouvé — the exhibition reinterprets iconic structures by shifting their function and context. Conceived as an evolving sequence of environments, the show invites visitors to activate the works, positioning them as central participants in a dynamic, collective experience shaped by use, interaction, and unpredictability.

name: Rirkrit Tiravanija: The House That Jack Built
artist: Rirkrit Tiravanija
museum: Pirelli HangarBicocca
location: Milan, Italy
dates: until July 26th, 2026

Rirkrit Tiravanija: The House That Jack Built, installation view, photo courtesy Pirelli HangarBicocca

Michael Armitage and Amar Kanwar At Palazzo Grassi

Pinault Collection presents two major solo exhibitions at Palazzo Grassi, featuring Kenyan-British painter Michael Armitage and Indian multimedia artist Amar Kanwar. Together, these exhibitions bridge the gap between art and activism, exploring sociopolitical tensions, the migration crisis, and the resilience of the human spirit through a blend of documentary reality and dreamlike vision.

Michael Armitage showcases forty-five large-scale paintings and over one hundred studies that redefine contemporary figurative art. Rejecting traditional canvas, Armitage paints on Lubugo bark cloth from Uganda, using its natural holes and rough textures to inform his ‘hallucinatory’ compositions. His work synthesizes East African news, Greek mythology, and global art history to address heavy themes like political repression and the perilous journeys of migrants with a lush, vibrant palette.

On the second floor, Amar Kanwar presents two significant multimedia installations that function as poetic meditations on power and justice. His landmark work, The Torn First Pages, documents the struggle for democracy in Myanmar, honoring a bookseller’s protest against military censorship. In contrast, his 2023 piece, The Peacock’s Graveyard, uses seven ‘invisible’ screens and a haunting piano raga to tell five metaphysical fables about death, karma, and the cycle of life.

name: Michael Armitage and Amar Kanwar at Palazzo Grassi

artists: Michael Armitage, Amar Kanwar
museum: Palazzo Grassi
location: Venice, Italy
dates: until January 10th, 2027

(from left to right) Michael Armitage, Strange Fruit, 2016, Private Collection; Baikoko at the mouth of the Mwachema River, 2016, Private Collection. installation views, Michael Armitage. The Promise of Change, 2026, Palazzo Grassi, Venezia. ph. Marco Cappelletti Studio © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

Lorna Simpson and Paulo Nazareth at Punta Della Dogana

Pinault Collection presents two major solo exhibitions at Punta della Dogana, featuring Lorna Simpson and Paulo Nazareth. The showcase explores the intersections of memory, racial identity, and the ‘unhealed fractures’ of history, transforming the former customs house into a space for investigating both personal and collective narratives.

Lorna Simpson’s exhibition marks her most significant European presentation in over a decade, focusing on her evolution from conceptual photography to painting. Spanning twenty years of work, including new pieces created for Venice, the exhibition features fifty works including her emblematic Ice and Special Characters series. Using a vast visual archive of collages and a palette of ‘nocturnal blues,’ Simpson examines the instability of memory and the mechanisms of racial stereotyping and erasure.

On the upper floor, Brazilian artist Paulo Nazareth presents ‘Algebra,’ a title derived from the Arabic term for ‘the setting of broken bones.’ Drawing from over twenty years of practice, Nazareth uses his experience of walking across the Americas and Africa to confront the ‘structural racial and colonial violence’ of borders. A central feature is a thick line of salt that runs through the galleries, tracing the ghostly architecture of a tumbeiro (slave ship) to symbolize healing, corrosion, and the Atlantic crossing.

name: Lorna Simpson and Paulo Nazareth at Punta della Dogana
artist: Lorna Simpson, Paulo Nazareth
museum: Punta della Dogana
location: Venice, Italy
dates: until November 22nd, 2026

(floor) Lorna Simpson, Vibrating cycles, 2026, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth (wall, from left to right) Lorna Simpson, Night Fall, 2023, Private Collection; Thin Bands, 2019, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth; Time, 2021, Private Collection; Howling, 2020, Gina and Stuart Peterson Collection. installation views, Lorna Simpson. Third Person, 2026, Punta della Dogana, Venezia. ph. James Wang © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

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Weronika Gęsicka’s Encyclopaedia is a photographic project and artist book project that turns the idea of authoritative knowledge on its head. The visual artist presents a collection of several hundred fictitious entries sourced from real encyclopedias, dictionaries, and lexicons, including Wikipedia, each illustrated through manipulated stock photographs and AI-generated imagery. These so-called ‘trap entries’ are deliberately false records planted by editors to detect plagiarism. If another publication reprinted the content verbatim, the fake entry would appear as proof.

What Gęsicka has done is excavate them, give them form, and turn them into a book that looks, at first glance, entirely credible. In a moment when the line between fact and fiction grows harder to trace, the question she raises feels less academic and more like a survival skill.

For the artist, the project is also a broader reckoning with how we navigate information today. ”’Encyclopaedia” is an attempt to consider how to function in today’s world, where we are bombarded with fake news every day, and knowledge is neither constant nor certain,’ she tells designboom. ‘It is also a question of what knowledge actually is in an age where successive scientific studies bring ever-new information and what we knew before can quickly become outdated.’

Near Dark. an unfinished American vampire horror film. directed by Ryan Zeller and written by Matt Craven and Kathryn Bigelow. It is a remake of the 1987 cult vamnire-western horror film directed by Kathryn Bidelow | all images courtesy of Weronika Gęsicka and Jednostka Gallery

the mechanics of deliberate falsehood

Some of the entries Gęsicka found would immediately raise suspicion; others are the kind that could slip past even a careful reader, covering fake animals, invented historical events, fictional characters, and objects that never existed. Some publications contained only a single planted mistake; others harbored several dozen.

The resulting book, 252 pages and 862 images printed in an edition of 1,500, has the weight and visual grammar of something authoritative. That is precisely the point. As the Polish artist puts it, ‘How can we distinguish false information from true information when we are inundated with images created by artificial intelligence, and it is increasingly difficult to distinguish them from real photographs?’ she asks. ‘We live in times when we have to verify the reality around us at every turn.’ It is this range between the absurd and the plausible that gives the project its unease, because the entries that are hardest to doubt are also the most dangerous. The controversy around deliberately planting false information in sources meant to verify facts is inseparable from the world we already live in, one where edited photographs are commonplace and AI-generated images are fast becoming just as routine. Knowledge is no longer something fixed, and what remains is the daily task of trying to find out what is actually true.

Weronika Gęsicka, Near Dark, from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

photography as the most convincing lie

Gęsicka deliberately chooses the photographic image as her primary illustrative medium to shape the argument of Encyclopaedia, even when those images are fabricated. Photography still carries an instinctive authority that other media do not, and the artist uses that trust as the ground on which the work operates. ‘The intention to provoke confusion and disorientation in the viewer was also one of the reasons why I used photographs, or images that imitate photographs, in this project,’ she explains. ‘Even today, we still think that photography is the most objective medium, while it is one of the easiest ways to manipulate reality, especially in the age of artificial intelligence. When we see something in the form of a photograph, we immediately assume that it must be true. Perhaps after a moment doubts arise, but our first natural instinct is to simply believe photographs as we believe our own eyes.’ By drawing on visual clichés, old-fashioned illustration styles, stock photo aesthetics, and imagery that already feels like memory, she constructs images so visually familiar that the fiction registers, if at all, only after the fact.

a photographic project that turns the idea of authoritative knowledge on its head

archives, memory, and reinterpretation

Throughout her practice, Gęsicka has worked consistently with archival materials, from images found accidentally online to stock photo libraries, police archives, and press photographs, using them to explore what happens when historical photographs are displaced, reframed, or subtly altered. ‘My works often refer to memory and history, both in the context of the individual and in the broader sense of collective memory,’ she shares with designboom. ‘This is why I work with archives, which, when transformed, reveal their different layers. I try to look for connections between the past and the present, while showing that history is not something finite and closed, but can still be reinterpreted, which gives a wide space for various manipulations.’ In Encyclopaedia, that impulse extends into the encyclopedic form, a genre that has always carried the authority of finality, of things settled and agreed upon. ‘In ”Encyclopaedia,” I also drew on images from the past: I was inspired by old illustrations, famous photographs, and images that each of us carries somewhere in our memory,’ she adds. ‘By using various visual clichés, I wanted to create images that, through their familiar appearance, would blur the line between reality and fiction as much as possible.’

Weronika Gęsicka, Jungftak #2, from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

knowledge in the age of AI and fake news

The book arrives as a timely cultural object. For Gęsicka, Encyclopaedia is not simply a curiosity about publishing mischief but a meditation on the conditions of knowledge today. ‘We have more and more tools to help us separate truth from fiction, but it is becoming more and more difficult to uncover that truth,’ she reflects. An accompanying essay by Charlotte Cotton, an internationally recognized curator and photography theorist, contextualizes the project within broader debates around image manipulation, AI, and the epistemology of visual evidence. Encyclopaedia is published by Blow Up Press and Jednostka Gallery, Warsaw, with book design by Aneta Kowalczyk. Gęsicka is currently nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2026.

Weronika Gęsicka, Jungftak #2 (detail), from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

Jungftak, (n.) a Persian bird; the male of which had only one wing, on the right side, and the female only one wing, on the left side; the male had a hook of bone, and the female an eyelet of bone; and it was by uniting hook and eye that they were enable to fly

Weronika Gęsicka, Jungftak #1, from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

Weronika Gęsicka, Jungftak #2, from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

Spanish tickler, a type of torture instrument, consisting of long, sharp iron spikes curved so as to resemble claws. It was often attached to a handle, or else used as an extension of the torturer’s hand. In this way, it was used to rip and tear flesh away from the bone. from any part of the body. It was also used as a weapon

Weronika Gęsicka, Lawrence Douglas Versett, from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

Versett, Lawrence Douglas (c. 1891 – July 5, 1965), a pioneering Albertan homesteader, amateur pilot, and master tool-builder. He is the namesake of the Douglas mountain range in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains.

MacMasters, Alan (born 1865), a Scottish scientist, credited with creating the first electric bread toaster. His invention went on to be developed by Crompton, Stephen J. Cook & Company as the Eclipse.

Gęsicka deliberately chooses the photographic image as her primary illustrative medium

Weronika Gęsicka, Eachy #3, from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

Weronika Gęsicka, Dord, from the ENCYCLOPAEDIA series, 2023–2026

a broader reckoning with how we navigate information today

Dayton, Robert, American artist, born in Pasadena, California. Blinded in an accident in 1968, Dayton has experimented since then with odor-emitting gases that resemble pungent body odors. His work, called Aroma-Art. is presented in a sealed chamber where an audience inhales scented air.

project info:

name: Encyclopaedia

artist: Weronika Gęsicka | @wgesicka

essay: Charlotte Cotton | @pimcharlottecotton

book design: Aneta Kowalczyk | @_aneta_kowalczyk_

publisher: Blow Up Press | @blow_up_press and Jednostka Gallery | @jednostkagallery, Warsaw, Poland

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Architecture and design agency Exercice installs four geometric ping pong tables in Ingré, France, serving as interactive public sculptures to the nearby residents. Commissioned by the Région Centre-Val de Loire, each design comes in a different shape and surface geometry, resulting in a playful collection of functional tables. While they’re different in the forms, they share the same stainless steel legs that taper outward at the base and anchor into circular floor plates bolted to the ground. 

The leg configuration of the sculptural ping pong tables change depending on the surface shape, but the material and the anchoring method are the same. The playing surfaces are finished in solid color in muted coral pink, pale blue, white, and teal green, each one coated with a matte surface treatment. A perforated metal net runs across the center of the tables, too, made from a metal sheet punched with a grid of circular holes.

all images courtesy of Exercice

A series of multipurpose, interactive public sculptures 

Individually, the sculptural ping pong tables show up in whimsical forms. The teal green table has a triangular plan and a folded surface. One half of the playing area is flat and horizontal while the other half rises at an angle from the center net. The net between the two halves is the same perforated metal format as the others, but it sits at the center of a surface where the two sides are not mirror images of each other. The legs on this table are more numerous than on the others, as having six legs support the weight distribution of the two angled planes better. The white table has an oval plan with a hole cut through the playing surface near one end, creating a circular opening in the table. It creates a zone where a ball can fall through the table rather than bounce back. 

The pink hexagonal table and the pale blue oval table each bring further variations: the hexagon introduces a third side and a third net position, which changes the number of players the table can accommodate from two to three. The oval removes corners entirely, shifting how balls behave when they travel toward the table’s edge. The agency says that the rules evolve according to the players who invent them, hinting that the tables don’t have the traditional instructions of use. In this way, the surfaces can also serve as a gathering place, allowing non-players to join the competing ones for a chat around the sculptural ping pong tables before the game begins.

commissioned by the Région Centre-Val de Loire, each design comes in a different shape and surface geometry

the tables share the same stainless steel legs that taper outward at the base and anchor into circular floor plates

a perforated metal net runs across the center of the tables, too

design agency Exercice installs four geometric ping pong tables in Ingré, France

project info:

name: Ping Pong Park

agency: Exercice | @_exercice_

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Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects shapes this Lost Shtetl Jewish Museum as a tranquil space among a sloping meadow in Šeduva, Lithuania. The museum has been realized in honor of a village and its Jewish community that vanished in August 1941. It draws its meaning from the execution of 664 residents in nearby forests and from the disappearance of a culture that had shaped the town for generations.

Rather than reconstructing Šeduva in literal terms, the architects assemble a cluster of abstract houses with hip roofs. Each volume approximates the scale of a single family dwelling. Together they form a compact settlement that suggests a village, or ‘shtetl’, through proportion and proximity. In this way, the Lost Shtetl Jewish Museum reads as a small village gathered in humble conversation across the landscape.

image © Kuvatoimisto Kuvio

facades of gleaming aluminum shingles

The facades of the Lost Shtetl Jewish Museum are clad in marine aluminum, a material chosen by the architects for its durability and recyclability. Sheets are cut and layered in a pattern that recalls wooden shingles. The surface takes on a scale like texture that catches light differently over the course of the day and through the seasons. In overcast weather the volumes appear muted and matte. Meanwhile, under low sun, the metal flickers with a soft sheen.

This reference to weathered rural buildings typical of the Lithuanian countryside grounds the museum in its setting. The material does more than protect the structure. It establishes a visual dialogue with barns and farmhouses in the surrounding fields, and translates vernacular memory into a contemporary envelope.

image courtesy the architects

A clustered museum designed for expansion

Short, narrow passageways connect the individual ‘houses’ of the Lost Shtetl Jewish Museum. Moving between them, visitors experience a subtle compression before entering the next gallery. The sequence reinforces the sense of walking through a village, passing from one interior to another.

This clustered layout also allows for future expansion as additional volumes can be introduced without disturbing the overall composition. The museum was conceived with the possibility of growth in mind, which ensures that its physical form can evolve alongside its growing curatorial ambitions.

image © Kuvatoimisto Kuvio

The grounds extend the narrative beyond the walls. Conceived as a memorial park, the landscape traces what has been described as the last journey. A birch alley leads through flowering meadows and wetlands before reaching an orchard. These elements reflect terrains that residents of Šeduva might have encountered on their way to the forests where they were killed.

The entrance hall opens toward this cultivated expanse across a meadow. Large openings frame views of grass and trees, allowing interior and exterior to remain in steady visual contact. The setting tempers the threshold between remembrance and exhibition to offer a moment of stillness before the descent.

image © Aiste Rakauskaite

Visitors enter at the upper level and then move downward to the exhibition spaces below. This strategy, used by the architects in earlier museum projects, follows the natural slope of the site. The main lobby feels intimate, with open service counters and a small café arranged in a space that resembles a living room in scale and atmosphere.

Inside the galleries, the roof geometry becomes visible again. Although the exhibition follows a black box concept, each space mirrors the hip roof profile overhead. Skylights set along the ridge admit controlled daylight, bringing a measured glow to the displays.

image © Aiste Rakauskaite

The curatorial script for the museum was drafted before the building design began. The architects were tasked with creating a setting for a narrative centered on one Lithuanian shtetl, while acknowledging the broader network of 294 such towns that once existed across the country.

A memorial wall made of mouth blown glass pieces embedded in a wooden grid lists the names of those communities. Light filters through the translucent glass, activating the surface and giving depth to the engraved names. The detail work in joints and built in furnishings demonstrates a high level of precision, reinforcing the sense of composure that defines the interior.

The lower level includes a narrow, tall dark space known as the Canyon of Holocaust. Its vertical proportions intensify the passage through the story of destruction. The sequence concludes in a similarly tall white space called the Canyon of Hope, oriented toward the cemetery and open fields.

image © Aiste Rakauskaite

image © Aiste Rakauskaite

image © Aiste Rakauskaite

project info:

name: The Lost Shtetl Jewish Museum

architect: Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects | @lmarchitects_fi

location: Šeduva, Lithuania

area: 4,900 square meters

completion: 2025

photography: © Aiste Rakauskaite | @aiste.rakauskaite, © Kuvatoimisto Kuvio | @kuviophoto, © Andrew Lee

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Milan design week 2026 is just around the corner, and designboom returns with it to guide you through this year’s most exciting events, exhibitions, and must-see installations! From April 20th to 26th, 2026, the world’s biggest design event is set to transform the streets of Milan into a celebration of creativity and promises an electrifying mix of design, architecture, and innovation spread across the city.

To make sure you don’t miss a thing (and know where to go!), we have once again curated a selection of must-see events, talks, exhibitions, and experiences that will ensure you leave Milan full of powerful new insights and lasting impressions. Chief among them: designboom’s very own takeover of the iconic ME Milan Il Duca hotel with ROOM FOR DREAMS. This year we’re bringing our Milan-born magazine to life through large-scale installations, a dedicated cinema space with daily film screenings, live talks, workshops and social encounters in partnership with SolidNature x AMO/OMA, Paf atelier, Ressence, La Marzocco, OPPO and INDX|GLOBAL. Join us as we explore the state of dreaming as a rigorous tool for cultural and social transformation – RSVP here.

From immersive experiences and installations to exclusive talks and pop-ups, read through our ultimate guide to milan design week 2026 below. We’ll be updating this guide and our brand-new map in real time, so stay tuned for the latest news, and don’t forget to follow our LIVE coverage on @milan.design.week.

illustration by Haus of Grace

designboom checks into me milan il duca with ‘room for dreams’

What if our dreams weren’t just nocturnal illusions, but blueprints for a better world? During Milan Design Week 2026, designboom steps beyond the digital to create ROOM FOR DREAMS, a site-specific takeover of the ME Milan Il Duca.

More than a design exhibition, ROOM FOR DREAMS becomes a living manifesto for utopian optimism, creative courage and the power of imagination through a multilayered approach where large scale installations, cinematic storytelling, live conversations, and ritual-driven encounters converge. From an immersive installation by SolidNature and OMA/AMO’s Samir Bantal, to a dedicated Cinema of Dreams by Paf atelier and a LIVE talk with Philippe Starck, each intervention transforms the hotel’s public spaces through a unique interpretation of dreaming, imagination and future possibilities.

what: Room for Dreams
when: 21-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 8:00PM)
where: ME Milan Il Duca, Piazza della Repubblica 13
JOIN US IN MILAN – RSVP HERE

‘Cinema for Dreams’ designed by Paf atelier

FAIRS AND GROUP SHOWS

SALONE DEL MOBILE

The 64th edition of Salone del Mobile.Milano, taking place from April 21st to 26th, 2026, reinforces its role as a global platform for design through an expanded, interconnected format featuring over 1,900 exhibitors from 32 countries. This year’s fair introduces new curatorial directions, including the debut of Salone Raritas, a showcase of collectible and unique design pieces, and ‘Aurea, an Architectural Fiction,’ an immersive installation by Maison Numéro 20 exploring luxury through narrative interiors. Alongside the return of key biennials such as EuroCucina and the International Bathroom Exhibition, the event places strong emphasis on sustainability, innovation, and evolving design systems, while also launching the Salone Contract initiative with a masterplan by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of OMA ahead of its 2027 debut.

what: Salone del Mobile.Milano 2026
when: 21-25 April 2026
where: Fiera Milano Rho, 20017 Rho MI

image courtesy of Salone del Mobile.Milano

fuorisalone

Fuorisalone 2026 adopts the theme ‘Be the Project,’ framing design as both a transformative process and a personal, evolving state of being. The concept positions individuals as active agents of change while emphasizing design as an ongoing dialogue that reshapes relationships between people, objects, and environments. Embracing ideas of transformation, responsibility, and inclusivity, the theme also engages with emerging intelligences such as artificial intelligence, seen not as a replacement but as a collaborative presence that challenges and expands human thinking. In a rapidly shifting world, Fuorisalone calls for a renewed understanding of design as a form of knowledge and storytelling—one that connects cultures, materials, and ideas to imagine a more sustainable, conscious, and interconnected future.

what: Fuorisalone 2026 – Be the Project
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Various locations across Milan

image by glo courtesy of Fuorisalone 

BRERA DESIGN DISTRICT

Brera Design District presents the 17th edition of Brera Design Week, aligning with the Fuorisalone theme ‘Be the Project’. In this context, Brera functions as a widespread urban laboratory, where design, creativity, and enterprise engage in daily dialogue, shaping the district into an open space for experimentation and research. During Design Week, 217 permanent showrooms, companies, designers, and cultural institutions, as well as 9 new additions, will interpret the theme through installations, exhibitions, and events, creating an extensive programme that reinforces Brera’s role as one of the key references of Fuorisalone.

what: Brera Design Week 2026 – Be the Project
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Brera Design District, Milan

image courtesy of Brera Design Week

moscapartnerS variations

For Milan Design Week 2026, MoscaPartners once again occupies the historic Palazzo Litta with Moscapartners Variations. For this year’s outdoor installation, Metamorphosis in Motion, architect Lina Ghotmeh welcomes visitors to her first site-specific outdoor work in Italy. The project transforms the Main Courtyard into a space of perception and experience, where the history of the palace meets a contemporary design language. 

what: Moscapartners Variations 2026 featuring Metamorphosis in Motion by Lina Ghotmeh
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Palazzo Litta, Corso Magenta

image courtesy of MoscaPartners

ISOLA DESIGN FESTIVAL

Isola Design Festival returns for a special 10th anniversary edition to Milan Design Week 2026. Over the past decade, what started as a local event has grown into a full-fledged festival and become one of the key districts of Milan Design Week. TEN: The Evolving Now marks this milestone by revisiting some of the most successful past showcase formats, while introducing new collaborations with key figures who have contributed to Isola’s history. 

Some participants who first joined as emerging talents return as established voices, while others join for the first time, continuing to shape the independent ecosystem that defines Isola. Presented for the first time and co-curated by Isola and Pietro Petrillo, Archivi Futuri explores the future of objects beyond 2025, reflecting on how today’s creative output can remain sustainable and meaningful for generations to come. Isola Design Gallery returns for its 7th edition, investigating how knowledge, materials, and processes can be preserved through artificial intelligence, traditional craft, and careful documentation.

what: Isola Design Festival 2026
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Isola District

Fabbrica Sassetti | image courtesy of Isola Design Festival

Masterly – The Dutch in Milano

Masterly – The Dutch in Milano celebrates its tenth edition at Palazzo Giureconsulti during Milan Design Week 2026. Spread across the four floors of the historic palace, over 100 independent Dutch designers, established companies, emerging entrepreneurial ventures, artisans, artists, and educational institutions will be featured. Alongside individual installations, this edition places particular emphasis on collective projects. The participants share one common goal: to create design that delivers real value, anchored in a strong vision and executed with a precise design attitude. Design is positioned as a strategic tool: inspiring, thought-provoking, and often impactful beyond the object itself

what: Masterly – The Dutch in Milano 2026
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, Piazza del Duomo, Milan

image courtesy of Masterly – The Dutch in Milano

ALCOVA

Alcova returns for its eleventh edition, unfolding across two extraordinary sites that each, in their own way, capture the essence of Milan’s urban identity. Alcova will be opening up new, unseen spaces within the Baggio Military Hospital, a vast, verdant complex in the Primaticcio district. The second site will be the legendary Villa Pestarini by Franco Albini: today a private residence, it has never before been accessible to the public. Together, these two locations form an architectural dialogue between preservation and reinvention.

what: Alcova 2026
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Baggio Military Hospital, Villa Pestarini – Sella Nuova, Milan

Baggio military hospital | image by Piergiorgio Sorgetti

5vie

Now in its thirteenth edition and under the motto ‘QoT – Qualia of Things‘, 5VIE Design Week brings its exhibition back to the heart of the historic center of Milan. The beating heart of the exhibition will be at the Cavallerizze of the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology. In this liminal space between history and innovation, design becomes a language capable of uniting biology and technology.

In a world increasingly saturated with data, algorithms, and digital connections, 5VIE Design Week 2026 chooses to chart a reverse course, bringing attention back to the irreducibility of the human experience. This year’s theme stands as a philosophical and creative manifesto challenging the dominance of the IoT (Internet of Things). While technology aims for network efficiency, the 5VIE district shifts the focus to the ‘quality of experience.’

what: 5VIE Design Week 2026 – Qualia of Things
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: 5VIE District, Milan

image courtesy of 5VIE Design Week

DOPPIA FIRMA – ‘Grand tour in italy’

The 2026 edition of Doppia Firma, by Fondazione Cologni and Living – Corriere della Sera, with support from Michelangelo Foundation, is dedicated to the theme of the ‘Grand Tour in Italy’, interpreted through 12 collaborations between international designers and Italian master artisans.

what: Doppia Firma – ‘Grand Tour in Italy’
when: 21-26 April 2026
where: Casa degli Artisti, Corso Garibaldi, 89/A

Casa degli Artisti | image courtesy of Brera Design District

ARTEMEST – L’APPARTAMENTO AT PALAZZO DONIZETTI

what: L’Appartamento by Artemest
when: 21-26 April 2026
where: Palazzo Donizetti, Via Donizetti, 48

Palazzo Donizetti | image courtesy of Artemest

switzerland presents shared matter

Organised by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the exhibition Shared Matter marks a new chapter following three successful editions of the House of Switzerland Milano (2023–2025), with a new location and a renewed format for presenting Swiss design. The project is realised in partnership with Presence Switzerland. Shared Matter is a collective exhibition presented at SPAZIOVENTO, in the Brera district, initiated by designers for designers.

what: Switzerland presents Shared Matter

when: 20-24 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)

where: SPAZIOVENTO, Via Pinamonte da Vimercate, 4

image courtesy of Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia

house of creatures

Led by Centre for Creativity in Slovenia (the team behind Material Bar at Alcova last year), House of Creatures is an exhibition at Alcova presenting ten contemporary Slovenian design works as living beings rather than products, inviting audiences to encounter objects that resist fixed categories of function, discipline, or scale. Set within an intimate shared habitat, the exhibition explores design as a network of relationships between bodies, spaces, and imaginations, where objects stretch, sag, leak, and adapt beyond conventional expectations.

Featuring works by Soft Baroque, Lara Bohinc, Dan Adlešič, Juicy Marbles and other established and emerging designers working across product design, fashion, and food innovation, the show challenges definitions of use and authorship while positioning visitors as temporary inhabitants within an already occupied environment. 

what: House of Creatures
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Via Achille Maiocchi, 8

image courtesy of Center for Creativity Slovenia

Homo Faber Fellowship

Under the art direction of Giampiero Bodino, 22 duos composed of master artisans and emerging talents co-created, designed, and handcrafted objects over the course of six months for the Homo Faber Fellowship. This exhibition showcases the results of these unique collaborations, bridging the gap between established expertise and new creative visions. It emphasizes the transmission of knowledge and the continued relevance of artisanal craftsmanship in contemporary design, moving from traditional ‘Arts & Crafts’ to the very center of the modern design conversation.  

what: Homo Faber Fellowship: Today’s Masters Meet Tomorrow’s Talents

when: 21-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)

where: Casa degli Artisti, Via Tommaso da Cazzaniga – Corso Garibaldi 89A

image courtesy of Michelangelo Foundation

events, exhibitions and installations

Hermès

On the occasion of Milan Design Week 2026, Hermès presents a new furniture piece, objects and home textiles from its home universe in a scenography designed by Charlotte Macaux Perelman, architect and artistic director for Hermès Maison Universe along with Alexis Fabry.

what: Hermès

when: 20-26 April 2026
where: La Pelota Jai Alai, Via Palermo 10

image courtesy of Hermès

Marcin Rusak’s Forum Florum

Marcin Rusak Studio presents ‘Forum Florum: Herbarium of the Present’ at SIAM, an exhibition uniting botanical inquiry and material experimentation in a quest to formulate a new language of aesthetic expression. Debuting a new body of work through a considered presentation that challenges the urgency of the global design events calendar, the show is conceived as an artistic and educational platform, inviting visitors into a timely reflection on nature and culture, biodiversity and sustainability, and the materials that shape contemporary life.

what: Marcin Rusak Studio – ‘Forum Florum: Herbarium of the Present’
when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)
where: SIAM 1838, Via Santa Marta, 18

image courtesy of Marcin Rusak Studio

PRADA FRAMES – in sight 

Now in its fifth edition, Prada Frames is back with its annual symposium, curated by design and research studio Formafantasma, that runs parallel to Milan’s Salone del Mobile. Following the belief that intellectual inquiry and cross-disciplinary dialogue can act as vessels of progress, and focusing on ideas rather than product, the initiative sits at the intersection of design, culture, and society. Under the title In Sight, the new Prada Frames installment focuses on image-making – a defining aspect of the immateriality of contemporary culture, and its preference for representation over facts – approaching the image as a cultural, political, and material force.

Prada Frames In Sight will be hosted within the complex of Santa Maria delle Grazie, an historical site located in the center of Milan. Lectures will take place in the Sacrestia, a Renaissance space traditionally attributed to Bramante, featuring inlaid cabinets with early sixteenth-century biblical scenes by Domenico and Francesco Morone.

what: Prada Frames 2026 – In Sight
when: 19-21 April 2026
where: Santa Maria delle Grazie, Via Giuseppe Antonio Sassi, 3

image courtesy of Prada

Superstudio design

For Milan Design Week 2026, Superstudio presents Superstudio Design, a new project that broadens perspectives and ambitions by tripling not only the exhibition space but also the areas of research that define the project’s identity and its vision for the future of the city.

The programme is divided into three venues with different visions: Superstudio Più SuperNova, a reference point for international design; at Superstudio Maxi SuperCity, a multidisciplinary space where design, art and architecture interact; at the new Superstudio Village in Bovisa, SuperPlayground, dedicated to young designers from around the world, emerging studios and experimental projects. A broad and international experience that redraws the map of MDW 2026 and encourages new encounters between creativity, experimentation and culture.

what: Superstudio Più – SuperNova

when: April 20-25 2026 (11:00AM – 9:00PM); April 26 (11:00AM – 6:00PM)

where: Via Tortona 27

what: Superstudio Village – SuperPlayground

when: April 20-25 2026 (11:00AM – 11:00PM); April 26 (11:00AM – 6:00PM)

where: Via Negrotto, 59

what: Superstudio Maxi – SuperCity

when: April 20-25 2026 (11:00AM – 9:00PM).; April 26 (11:00AM – 6:00PM)

where: Via Moncucco, 35

image courtesy of Superstudio.Design

Le design défilé by french living in motion

Curated by the French Living in Motion collective and designed by Jakob+MacFarlane, Le Design Défilé brings together 53 creations by 28 French houses, combining traditional craftsmanship with contemporary standards, reflecting the diversity of design languages, uses, and savoir-faire. Conceived as a défilé, the exhibition unfolds as a spatial narrative: objects are staged in dialogue with movement, sound and atmosphere, structured as a choreographed parcours. 

what: Le Design Défilé by French Living in Motion collective

when: 21-26 April 2026 (11:00AM – 6:00PM)

where: House of MINI, Palazzo Borromeo d’Adda, Via Alessandro Manzoni, 41

image courtesy of Le Design Défilé

JUSOOR DESIGN COLLECTIONS

The Architecture & Design Commission of Saudi Arabia presents Jusoor Design Collections at Milan Design Week 2026, a collaborative exhibition connecting five Saudi designers with international design brands from India, Nepal, and Spain. Curated by Samer Yamani, the project explores material, identity, and cross-cultural exchange through a series of collectible design works developed across Riyadh, New Delhi, Kathmandu, and Barcelona, highlighting a new generation of Saudi designers on the global stage.

Presented at the historic Pinacoteca di Brera, the exhibition showcases a collection of limited-edition objects – from sculptural lighting and textile-based seating to collectible furniture – developed through cross-cultural collaboration. The works emphasize process, material experimentation, and dialogue, offering insight into how contemporary Saudi design engages with both local narratives and global perspectives.

what: Jusoor Design Collections – collaborative exhibition of Saudi designers and global design brands

when: 20 April 2026 (press preview, by invitation); 21–25 April (10:00AM – 7:00PM); 26 April (10:00AM – 2:00PM)

where: Pinacoteca di Brera, Via Brera 28

image courtesy of AC Commission KSA

baccarat hosts ‘crystal crypt’

To mark its return to Milan Design Week, Baccarat will unveil new creations in the heart of the Brera district, within an immersive science fiction experience bringing together, across multiple timelines, the icons and savoir-faire of the house, celebrating boldness and creative freedom. Conceived by Emmanuelle Luciani, artist, art historian and curator, Crystal Crypt offers an unexpected interpretation of Baccarat’s identity, approaching crystal as a total art experience.

Envisioned as a galactic cathedral, the space pays tribute to the craftsmanship of Baccarat’s artisans, passed down and reinvented through generations. One highlight: Mille Fleurs, the result of a collaboration with British designer Bethan Laura Wood. Renowned for her passion for color, material and craftsmanship, she offers a contemporary reinterpretation of Baccarat’s Zénith chandelier, originally designed in the mid-19th century.

what: Baccarat – ‘Crystal Crypt’
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Via Marco Formentini, 10

Illustration visual of the Mille Fleurs chandelier by Baccarat × Bethan Laura Wood | image courtesy of Baccarat

Range rover x storey studio

Following the success of its 2025 debut at Milan Design Week, Futurespective: Connected Worlds, Range Rover continues to deepen its presence within the international design community. For 2026, the brand has partnered with Storey Studio, the London and Paris-based spatial design practice led by Robert Storey, to conceive a new installation that will further explore the intersection of luxury, design and sensory experience. 

The 2026 installation celebrates Range Rover Bespoke, the brand’s pinnacle personalisation service, which invites clients to commission truly individual vehicles shaped by expert craftsmanship and creative collaboration. With a design philosophy rooted in modernism, restraint and purposeful innovation, Range Rover continues to explore new ways of expressing its identity through cultural partnerships and immersive experiences that resonate with a global audience.

what: Range Rover x Storey Studio
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: tbc

image courtesy of Range Rover

gaggenau at villa necchi campiglio

Gaggenau — the luxury brand for professional-grade home appliances — celebrates ‘Presence’ during Milan Design Week 2026 at Villa Necchi Campiglio: a refined architectural installation that sharpens perception and quiets distraction, revealing what matters. Through a sequence of spaces shaped by architecture, light and material, visitors are invited to experience the brand without explanation.

what: Gaggenau at Villa Necchi Campiglio

when: 21-26 April 2026 (11:00AM – 5:00PM)

where: Villa Necchi Campiglio, Via Mozart, 14

image courtesy of Gaggenau

Palazzo Citterio – when apricots blossom

When Apricots Blossom, commissioned by Gayane Umerova, Chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, is an immersive exhibition presented at Palazzo Citterio. Inspired by a poem by renowned Uzbek writer Hamid Olimjon, the exhibition reflects on themes of hope, renewal and resilience. Through installations, newly commissioned design works and public programmes, visitors are invited to discover the cultural heritage of the Aral Sea region and Karakalpakstan. Curated by architect Kulapat Yantrasast, the exhibition unfolds as a journey through three essential elements of daily life in the region: textiles, food and shelter. 

Twelve international designers have contributed new works for the exhibition, including Bethan Laura Wood, Bobir Klichev, Didi NG Wing Yin, Fernando Laposse, Marcin Rusak, Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Sanne Visser and Sevara Haydarova Donazzan, alongside design studios Glithero, Studio CoPain and Raw-Edges. Working closely with artisans in Uzbekistan, the designers explore traditional materials such as wood, silk, ceramic, felt and reed, creating contemporary interpretations rooted in local craft knowledge.

what: When Apricots Blossom
when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 6:00PM)
where: Palazzo Citterio, Via Brera, 12

image courtesy of ACDF and Bethan Laura Wood Studio

‘A Garden of Curiosity’ by MINI x Paul Smith

An immersive installation created by MINI and Paul Smith, the Garden of Curiosity is a playful space of wooden walkways and tall grasses leading to open platforms or sensory rooms that explore experiences of sight, sound and colors. A blend of whimsical design, craft and curiosity.

what: Garden of Curiosity by Mini x Paul Smith

when: 21-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)

where: House of MINI, Palazzo Borromeo d’Adda, Via Alessandro Manzoni, 41

image courtesy of Mini

MUTINA COLLABORATIONS: NERI&HU and THE ALBERS FOUNDATION

Mutina presents two new internationally significant collaborations with Neri&Hu and The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation. These encounters represent true moments of cultural convergence, expanding the brand’s language and reaffirming its role within the contemporary design landscape.

Form is the generative principle behind the collaboration with Neri&Hu, expressed through two complementary collections: Weaving features ceramic coverings inspired by the art of bamboo weaving, while Hé is a new Editions line consisting of tableware objects that reinterpret traditional Chinese ritual geometries. Colour, on the other hand, lies at the heart of the collaboration with The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, which gives rise to Homage to the Square, a collection inspired by Josef Albers’ perceptual theories.

what: Mutina featuring Neri & Hu and the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation
when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)

where: Spazio Mutina, Via del Crociale, 25

image by Gerhardt Kellerman | courtesy of Mutina

GROHE SPA Aqua Sanctuary

A historic first: For the first time, the legendary Italian institution Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato becomes the GROHE SPA Aqua Sanctuary – an evocative journey exploring ‘Wellbeing through Water’. Engage your senses and slow the perception of time to fully immerse in water as a transformative element that cleanses, rejuvenates and relaxes.

what: GROHE SPA Aqua Sanctuary

when: 21-26 April 2026 (11:00AM – 5:00PM)

where: Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato, Via Rivoli, 6

image courtesy of GROHE

Continental presents the Sound of Premium

As part of Milan Design Week 2026, Continental presents ‘THE SOUND OF PREMIUM’ at BASE Milano—an immersive listening experience that explores the theme of urban noise pollution, transforming it into a sensory journey. The installation is designed as an ‘urban synthesis’ a landscape where sound becomes material and defines the space itself. Through a path that evolves in three distinct phases—chaos, harmony, and silence—visitors traverse an environment where city noise is progressively transformed into balance, revealing how a silent city is not empty, but a condition resulting from research.

The installation, created by WOA Studio with strategic support from WPP Media’s Entertainment unit, translates this vision into an immersive experience where light, space and sound interact to create a contemplative and minimalist environment.

what: Continental presents ‘THE SOUND OF PREMIUM’

when: 20-26 April 2026

where: BASE Milano,  Via Ambrogio Bergognone da Fossano, 34

image courtesy of Continental

Geely x dotdotdot: Anima mundi. a visionary impulse

Geely Auto hosts ‘Anima Mundi. A Visionary Impulse’, a site-specific interactive installation conceived by Dotdotdot, a multidisciplinary design studio specializing in the creation of narrative environments. Inspired by the unifying principle from which all life originates, ‘Anima Mundi. A Visionary Impulse’ is an interactive installation that immerses visitors in a new experiential cosmogony.

Upon entering the large hall with the organ of the neoclassical Instituto dei Ciechi, the public is confronted with an immersive microcosm composed of five monumental veils, which constantly change in response to the physical presence of visitors. Images and soundscapes are self-generated, giving life to an organism that evolves and transforms.

what: Geely and Dotdotdot host ‘Anima Mundi. A Visionary Impulse’
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Instituto dei Chiechi, Via Vivaio, 7

image courtesy of Geely

Marea / tide by habits design

Part of Brera Design District 2026, MAREA / TIDE  by Milan-based Habits Design is a robotic and interactive aerial structure. Suspended above visitors like a mobile, reflective vault, it is composed of lightweight helium-inflated modules connected by motorized nodes, forming an artificial, responsive sky in constant transformation. Air becomes a design material: a fluid atmosphere capable of slowly deforming in response to what unfolds in the space below.

Like the natural phenomenon from which it takes its name, MAREA / TIDE advances and recedes through almost imperceptible vertical movements, translating the presence, density, and flow of visitors into spatial variations. The project explores lightness as both a structural and conceptual condition: an unstable balance between buoyancy and control, between tension and adaptation.

what: MAREA / TIDE by Habits Design
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Via Solferino, 24

image courtesy of Habits Design

glo for art

glo returns to Brera Design Week 2026 with an installation by Numero Cromatico at Palazzo Moscova. Inspired by the theme ‘Be the Project,’ the work explores the relationship between light, architecture and participation, creating a contemporary immersive experience. At the center, a large interactive portal – an orange circle, symbol of connection and belonging – welcomes visitors into a dynamic space where technology and creativity merge. The audience becomes an active part of the project, contributing to its evolution.

what: glo for art 
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: Palazzo Moscova, Via Moscova, 18

image by glo courtesy of Fuorisalone 

5VIE – JŌMON: A Mother’s Anthem

5VIE presents JŌMON: A Mother’s Anthem, a lyrical installation of new work by Japanese ceramic artist Noe Kuremoto and curated by Anna Carnick. The timely project is framed as a love letter to mothers everywhere, honoring the full complexity of motherhood: the beauty and the pain; the struggle and the devotion; and the ferocity, hope, and daily care. 

The presentation features Kuremoto’s latest sculptural stoneware vessels, composed as contemporary reinterpretations of some of the world’s earliest known pottery, dating back to the Jōmon period (14,000–300 BCE). Traditionally, these vessels were used in both domestic and ritualistic contexts, and often embraced as protective objects. Kuremoto’s elegant pieces are recast as both talisman and tributes—homages to the daily moments of light and shadow that together make up a life.

what: 5Vie presents ‘JŌMON: A Mother’s Anthem’

when: 20-26 April 2026 (08:30AM – 8:00PM)

where: Cavallerizze, Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Via Olona, 4

image by Kestutis Zilionis | courtesy of Noe Kuremoto

Buccellati presents aquae mirabiles

On the occasion of Milan Design Week 2026, Buccellati unveils Aquae Mirabiles. The installation, curated by Federica Sala, designed by Balich Wonder Studio, celebrates the Caviar silverware collection and its iconic microsphere motif and immerses visitors in the Maison’s universe. The exhibit is a visual experience that blends epic grandeur and the poetic sensitivity of the English artist Luke Edward Hall, creating a luminous and evocative narrative deeply rooted in Italian tradition.

what: Buccellati presents ‘Aquae Mirabiles’

when: 21-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 6:00PM)

where: Piazza Tomasi di Lampedusa

image courtesy of Buccellati

Totemic by Andrea Claire Studio

Andrea Claire Studio presents Totemic, a monumental sculptural lighting installation at Alcova during Milan Design Week 2026. The installation explores the ritual of adornment, where jewelry acts as a memento and container of meaning. Treating lighting as jewelry for space, Totemic stacks luminous forms into a vertical architectural composition. Three shade forms—Moon, August and Sage—are arranged as vertical elements supported by slender brass armatures finished in gold and silver leaf.  The presentation marks the Los Angeles–based practice’s first international solo exhibition and its debut at Alcova.

what: Andrea Claire Studio presents Totemic

when: 20-26 April 2026 (11:00AM – 7:00PM)
where: Alcova, Ex Ospedale Militare di Baggio, Casa delle Suore, Room C9, Via Simone Saint Bon, 7

image courtesy of Andrea Claire Studio

ASICS Kinetic Playscape

On the occasion of Milan Design Week 2026, ASICS SportStyle debuts at Salone del Mobile with the ASICS Kinetic Playscape, an immersive public installation created to introduce the new GEL-KINETIC 2.0 sneaker. Open to the public from 22–24 April at Garage 21 in Milan, the project marks the brand’s first consumer-facing activation in Italy. Conceived with Los Angeles–based studio NUOVA Group, the experience invites visitors into a retro-futuristic environment inspired by the ASICS philosophy Anima Sana In Corpore Sano. Blending movement, design and innovation, the installation offers a five-chapter spatial journey where guests explore the space while discovering the latest ASICS SportStyle sneaker.

what: ASICS Kinetic Playscape
when: 22-24 April (11:00-18:00)
where: Garage 21 

image courtesy of ASICS

IKEA – Food for thought

Hungry for more, IKEA returns to Milan with ‘Food for Thought’, a participatory exhibition that brings together Democratic Design with the sensory world of gastronomy. Co-created with five chefs and interior designers, it explores how design reflects the evolving rituals of cooking, eating, and connecting across cultures. Visitors have a unique chance to marvel at live cooking demos hosted by a different duo each day. Pairings include designer and architect Charlotte Taylor with chef Ben Lippett; interior designer Maye Ruiz with chef Rosio Sanchez; art director Mehek Malhotra with chef Maurizio Tentella; multidisciplinary artist Lydia Chan with chef Alessandra Lauria; and interior designer Oliver Lyttelton with recipe developer and content creator Tina Choi.

what: IKEA – Food for Thought
when: 21-25 April (10:00AM – 9:00PM), 26 April (10:00AM – 6:00PM)
where: Spazio Maiocchi, Via Achille Maiocchi 7

IKEA’s culinary guests | image courtesy of IKEA

Artisia and studio yellowdot present edible reveries

ARTISIA, the world’s first and unique 3D-printed pasta, joins forces with Studio Yellowdot to present ‘EDIBLE
REVERIES’. The brand’s first solo exhibition in Milan at once honours Italy’s most beloved ingredient and dares
to reimagine it — unlocking its creative potential through the lens of design thinking. Nestled in the heart of the
Porta Venezia Design District, the showcase unfolds as a multisensorial experience designed around a
simple, universal gesture: enjoying pasta.

Guests are invited to wander through a serene, dreamlike environment where Studio Yellowdot has designed Tattile (tactile in Italian), a site-specific, conceptual, 3D-printed furniture collection resembling oversized pasta pieces, surrounded by sculptural lamps. The journey continues with a video projection narrating the design and technology from byte to bite behind the tech-crafted pasta. A delicate soundscape completes the sensory journey.

what: Artisia and Studio Yellowdot present ‘Edible Reveries’
when: 21-25 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM), 26 April (10:00AM – 2:00PM)
where: Via Melzo 34

image courtesy of Artisia

byredo presents ‘in conversation with’

For Salone del Mobile 2026, Byredo unveils a collaborative project with designer Jean-Guillaume Mathiaut, an
encounter between scent and structure, memory and material. The collaboration, shaped through a close dialogue between brand and designer, unfolds as a limited edition of wooden sculptural seats conceived solely for Byredo.

Developed as exhibition pieces, these works are crafted entirely in wood and finished in black, painted with Japanese ink. Conceived as quiet moments for exchange and contemplation. The edition comprises six pieces in total: two principal works, Behind the Scenes and Millenium, accompanied by four additional works corresponding to the four cardinal points of the Convent.

image courtesy of Byredo

Google – a message from tomorrow

ECAL and Google present A Message From Tomorrow, featuring the projects of Master Product Design students. The Industrial Design team at Google (Google ID) initiated a collaboration with ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne to develop a concept for a mobile-focused product inspired by a daily ritual. ECAL’s Master Product Design students were invited to envision innovative hardware engaging with contemporary habits.

Through compelling storytelling, these conceptual projects consider the human dimension of mobile technology: how it shapes everyday gestures and how our relationships with devices might evolve in the future. This collaboration reflects ECAL’s forward-looking approach to design, combining experimentation, critical thinking, and a strong receptivity to emerging technologies.

what: A Message from Tomorrow by Google and ECAL
when: 21-25 April 2026 (10:00AM – 8:00PM)
where: Spazio Orso 16, Via dell’Orso 16

image courtesy of ECAL

konel pulse bag

Konel Inc., a creative studio active in Japan, New York, and Milan, presents Pulse Pack, a wearable bag that allows a physical connection with the user’s heartbeat. The bag senses the user’s heartbeat and pulses at half its frequency, creating an internal rhythm that encourages a moment of pause from external stimuli. In this way, the device helps users perceive their emotions more clearly, fostering a state of calm and awareness. In this vision, Konel interprets technology as a tool for bringing balance to daily life, shaping what it defines as Good Singularity – an approach that combines science, culture, and design to imagine new possibilities for the future.

what: Konel presents Pulse Bag
when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)
where: Via Palermo 11

image by Yusuke Maekawa

gllìa

For Salone del Mobile Milano 2026, Gllìa — a new brand founded by Eleonora Galli with creative direction by Næssi — makes its debut in Milan. The installation introduces ‘Archivio’ ,the brand’s first collection: an essential system of surfaces and components that defines a clear, rigorous, and evolving design language. A core set of elements conceived to shape enduring interiors, where material and function form the foundation of the project.

Gllìa takes shape within an increasingly complex and layered design landscape. Rather than adding more, the brand works to bring clarity and build a legible system of essential elements designed to support projects over time. Primary surfaces and fundamental components—from terracotta to parquet, from glazed ceramics to sanitary ware—are not driven by trends, but grounded in function and material, forming a quiet framework around which each space can develop its own identity.

what: Gllìa Debut show

when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 8:00PM)

where: Convey, Via S.Senatore, 10, Floor 1 / Unit 1.2 / Room 1.2a

photo Luca Santini | image courtesy of Gllìa

Visteria Foundation: Polish Modernism

Curated by Federica Sala and Anna Maga, ‘Polish Modernism’ provides a multithreaded narrative about Polish Modernism, featuring contemporary objects alongside historical works. It explores how modernist ideas continue to influence contemporary Polish design culture as an act of cultural resistance. Set design by Zofia Wyganowska creates a dialogue between the historical architecture of Torre Velasca and the curated objects, showing how beauty was fiercely championed to maintain decorative arts at the center of Polish identity.  

what: ‘Polish Modernism’, a Struggle for Beauty

when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)

where: Torre Velasca – 16th Floor, Piazza Velasca 3-5

image courtesy of Visteria Foundation

Visteria Foundation & ETEL: Jorge Zalszupin

Dedicated to the works of Jorge Zalszupin, a Warsaw-born artist who became an icon of Brazilian architecture and global modernism. The display features thirty designs, including the iconic Dinamarquesa armchair and organic Pétalas tables, alongside his masterpiece Tea Trolley. The showcase is further enriched by architectural projects, original sketches, photographs, and materials documenting the history of his company, L’Atelier. It celebrates the organic forms and material sensitivity that defined the fusion of Polish roots and Brazilian design.  

what: Jorge Zalszupin’s Brazilian Modernism

when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)

where: Torre Velasca – 16th Floor, Piazza Velasca 3-5

image courtesy of Visteria Foundation / ETEL

ETEL: Entropia

Entropia proposes a constructive interpretation of entropy, reassembling discarded material into a new formal language. Based on a conceptual grid developed by Cristián Mohaded, artisans experiment with contrasts and spatial relationships, creating surfaces from wooden fragments. The collection includes sculptural totems, coffee tables, and a console. The resulting works synthesize aspects of brutalism and natural materiality, reflecting a dialogue between order and chance, structure and spontaneity through the innovative reuse of noble wood scraps.  

what: Entropia by Cristián Mohaded

when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)

where: ETEL Milan, Via Maroncelli 13

image courtesy of ETEL

Interni Venosta

Emiliano Salci, Britt Moran, and Fabbri Services present the new collection of Interni Venosta. The exhibition is hosted within a private home designed by the legendary Osvaldo Borsani, providing an intimate and historically significant architectural context for the new pieces. No preview material is available before the Salone, making this a highly anticipated unveiling. The show blends contemporary furniture design with the refined atmosphere of a historic Milanese residence, offering a rare opportunity to view the brand’s latest creative evolution.  

what: Interni Venosta New Collection Launch

when: 20-26 April 2026 (12:00PM – 6:00PM)

where: Via Bigli (Private Residence)

image courtesy of Interni Venosta

Massimo Rigaglia

‘Lights in Tension’ (L/T) showcases a series of bamboo arc lamps created by splitting poles into slender strips. This method utilizes the material’s natural flexibility efficiently without excessive mechanical intervention. The soft, lightweight lamps cast fluid light and are available in three sizes. They can stand alone or be repeated to create striking, scenographic light installations. The project highlights the intersection of traditional material knowledge and minimalist structural design, transforming light into a physical, tense element.  

what: Lights in Tension

when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:30AM – 7:30PM)

where: Via Cesare Correnti 14

image courtesy of Massimo Rigaglia

DEDON

Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby present TRICOT, a modular sofa collection hand-woven from round DEDON Fiber. The design pushes hand-weaving techniques toward complex, articulated three-dimensional curves, allowing the modules to be conceived almost as textile elements. Soft and enveloping, the collection represents a perfect symbiosis between vision, craftsmanship, and technically advanced industrial production. The continuous curves redefine outdoor seating, merging formal rigor with the warmth of handcrafted textures.  

what: TRICOT by Barber Osgerby

when: 21-26 April 2026 (09:30AM – 6:30PM)

where: Salone del Mobile / Fiera Milano Rho

image courtesy of Lorenzo Cugini

GLOSTER

Gloster presents Ithaca, a new outdoor furniture collection designed by Michele De Lucchi. Celebrating the structural potential of wood, the design utilizes taut, tapered diagonals that transform furniture structure into sculpture. The essential, robust frames support table tops and seating elements with apparent lightness, creating a dynamic balance between tension and stability. Precision-shaped wooden frames are paired with soft cushions, merging formal rigor with architectural warmth to define a welcoming yet highly structured domestic landscape.  

what: ITHACA by AMdL Circle

when: 21-26 April 2026 (09:30AM – 6:30PM)

where: Salone del Mobile / Fiera Milano Rho

image courtesy of Emanuele Zamponi

showrooms

Fornasetti

On the occasion of Milan Design Week, Fornasetti unveils the complete transformation of its Milan flagship on Corso Venezia. Designed in collaboration with international design studio Tutto Bene, the project marks a significant new chapter in the physical expression of the Fornasetti universe. The redesigned Fornasetti flagship unfolds across three distinct floors, each offering a different lens into the brand’s creative universe.

At street level, visitors enter through Fornasetti Space, a transitional, gallery-like environment that during Milan Design Week hosts Fornasetti Fiori by Fjura, where sculptural floral installations by Simone Gooch transform the act of buying flowers into an artistic experience. The first floor, conceived as The Living Archive, presents the Fornasetti catalogue through curated vitrines and cabinets, highlighting the repetition, variation, and coherence of its iconic objects. On the second floor, The Apartment offers a fully immersive setting of four themed interiors where pieces are experienced within lived environments, bringing the brand’s imaginative language into a contemporary domestic context.

what: Fornasetti showroom
when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:30PM)
where: Fornasetti Store, Corso Venezia, Milan

image courtesy of Fornasetti

liberty and Lorenza bozzoli present soft architecture

Leading British luxury retailer and design house Liberty and Milan-based furniture designer Lorenza Bozzoli will present ‘Soft Architecture’, a bold exploration of how textiles can transcend surface decoration to become structural and experiential elements within design. Located in the Lorenza Bozzoli showroom apartment in Brera, the installation will centre on a sculptural circular sofa composed entirely of cushions – an architectural form that blurs the boundary between surface and space.

what: Liberty and Loranza Bozzoli present ‘Soft Architecture’
when: 22-24 April 2026 (11:00AM – 5:00PM) RSVP here
where: 20 Piazza Castello

image courtesy of Liberty

Seletti

Seletti in collaboration with Eternoo, Italy’s leading distributor of building materials and solutions, presents the new Tools collection. Common cleaning supplies, construction tools, and hardware items—inherent to the world of Eternoo—are reinterpreted through Seletti’s distinctive vision. No longer elements to be ‘hidden away,’ they become small domestic sculptures with a pop and ironic identity, playing with the memory of these objects only to subvert it.

what: Seletti and Eternoo present ‘Tools’
when: 21-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 7:00PM)
where: Fornasetti Store, Corso Venezia

image courtesy of Seletti

dornbracht

At Dornbracht, INSPIRING YOUR VISION is more than a claim – it is the way we work with designers, architects and visionaries. We see inspiration as the starting point of every creation, and design as the moment when vision takes shape. Engage a stimulating exchange with guest artists and immerse yourself in our fluid showroom journey. Discover how dialogue becomes inspiration with the new avant-garde series – shaping vision into a tangible presence. Let your own vision unfold, creating your own place of belonging.

what: Dornbracht Showroom

when: 21-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 8:00PM)

where: Via Palermo, 19A

image courtesy of Dornbracht

unopiù

Unopiù unveils the restyling of its historic showroom at Via Pontaccio 9, designed by Milan-based architect Diletta Stazzi, known for her strong focus on the emotional dimension of space. The bright, continuous environment, conceived to foster relationships between products, materials and atmospheres, hosts the new Diario di Viaggio collections. The project reinterprets, in a contemporary key, some characteristic elements of Milanese interiors, such as the sequence of arches, used to amplify spatial perception and create a more fluid experience. The new collections coexist with the brand’s heritage products within a chromatic and material palette coherent with the evolution of Unopiù’s identity.

what: Unopiù Showroom

when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 8:00PM)

where: Via Pontaccio, 9

image courtesy of Unopiù

MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES

NILUFAR Depot – volumes of stillness & Nilufar grand hotel

Nilufar presents Volumes of Stillness, a new body of work developed in collaboration with the gallery, conceived as a continuous interior landscape of rounded volumes and saturated surfaces that balance softness and density, using light as a material to shape atmosphere and perception. The exhibition explores a series of objects conceived as part of a continuous interior landscape. Rounded volumes, low silhouettes, and saturated surfaces define an environment that feels both familiar and slightly displaced.

Conceived as a fictional luxury hotel beyond time and space, Nilufar Grand Hotel places objects at the center of a curated spatial narrative, featuring three signature bedrooms by david/nicolas, Filippo Carandini, Allegra Hicks. Within this context, emerging designers make their debut at Depot, such as Von Pelt Atelier and Derin Beren Yalcin. The project continues Nilufar’s exploration of design, where hospitality becomes a platform for dialogue.

what: Volumes of Stillness by Nilufar
when: 20-26 April 2026 (10:00AM – 5:00PM)
where: Nilufar Depot, Viale Lancetti 34

image by Stefanos Tsakiris, courtesy of Nilufar

FONDAZIONE PRADA – DASH

Fondazione Prada presents ‘Dash’, a new multimedia project devised by Chinese artist Cao Fei for its Milan venue combining multiple languages ranging from photography to video installation, from virtual reality to documentary footage, and archival material, to trace a complex portrait of a global agricultural technological revolution and its inherent contradictions. ‘Dash’ unfolds from Cao Fei’s long-term research. Over the past three years, Cao Fei has immersed herself in farmlands across southern and northwestern China, as well as Southeast Asia, observing and interpreting the emergence of smart agriculture.

what: Dash by Cao Fei
when: 9 April – 28 September 2026
where: Fondazione Prada, Largo Isarco 2

Cao Fei Dash (still), 2026. Courtesy the artist, Vitamin Creative Space, and Sprüth Magers

TRIENNALE – the EAMES HOUSES

La Triennale di Milano hosts an exhibition offering the first comprehensive overview of the residential architecture of the founders of Eames Office, the American architecture and design studio. The installation,The Eames Houses, explores the enduring relevance of Charles and Ray Eames’ ideas on prefabrication, modular construction, and a human-scale approach to living. At the center of the installation, a full-scale reconstruction of an Eames structure invites visitors to experience the spatial qualities and material clarity that define their architectural vision.

Together with Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the Triennale also presents a monographic exhibition dedicated to Andrea Branzi, one of the central figures in Italian design culture and project thinking between the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Through the lens of Japanese architect and Pritzker Prize laureate Toyo Ito, the exhibition highlights the Italian designer’s most significant themes and projects.

what: The Eames Houses & Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito

when: 20 April – 10 May 2026
where: Triennale Milano, Viale Alemagna, 6

Two-story Eames Pavilion, 2026 | Yosigo, Rocafort/Courtesy Kettal 2025/Eames Office, LLC

ADI DESIGN MUSEUM

ADI Design Museum will be buzzing with exhibitions, installations, and talks from April 20 to 26. Featured highlights include the 29th edition of the Compassod’Oro, Italy’s prestigious design award that has been shaping the world for over 70 years, a solo exhibition by Japanese designer Haruka Misawa, an installation by Mario Botta, inspired by the work of Le Corbusier, and innovative projects from emerging designers worldwide.

what: ADI Design Museum
when: 20-26 April 2026
where: ADI Design Museum, Milan

image courtesy of ADI Design Museum

As always, we’re teaming up with ArchDaily to bring you comprehensive coverage of Salone del Mobile 2026 and the many city-wide events of Milan Design Week. From key highlights at the fair to must-see exhibitions and installations, we’ll keep you updated with curated insights, interviews, and standout designs from this year’s edition.

The post designboom’s ultimate guide to milan design week 2026 appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Architecture is often viewed as an act of looking forward, a race toward the sleek, the new, and the unprecedented. but for tsuyoshi tane, the most radical way to build the future is to dig into the past. ‘I believe that architecture begins from the memory of a place,’ tane tells desigboom in an interview from his paris based studio. Behind him, the walls are a mosaic of references, much like his projects: a collision of archaeological fragments and modernist ambition. ‘We are not just designing shapes; we are excavating stories that have been buried by modernization.’

This ‘archaeology of the future’ — tane’s personal manifesto — is currently taking center stage at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. As part of the architecture connecting series, the exhibition ‘memoryscapes’ (running until may 2026) pairs tane with Chinese architect xu tiantian. Together, they challenge the industry’s obsession with the tabula rasa, proposing instead that we treat the earth as a living archive. It is a quiet rebellion against the generic glass towers that define our contemporary skyline, asking instead what the soil beneath them has to say. ‘We want to create architecture for the future that no one has ever seen, experienced, or even imagined yet,’ he explains, ‘but it does not mean we want to make a novel and futuristic type of architecture.’

installation image of ‘memoryscapes’ at the louisiana museum of modern art | image by camilla stephan

ATTA uses archaeological methodology to excavate space

At the Louisiana, Tane’s installation is a sensory overload of research. Thousands of images and physical models, some built from raw, site-specific materials, fill the space. It feels less like a traditional architectural gallery and more like a laboratory of time. One room, titled ‘archaeological thinking,’ displays Tane’s personal archive of found objects, proving that a rusted nail or a specific soil sample can be as vital to a blueprint as a CAD drawing. His process is exhaustive, often beginning months before a single line is drafted on a computer.

‘When we start a project, we don’t draw immediately,’ Tane explains during our conversation.‘We are really diving into the research process of archaeologically collecting images, even scientifically, reading books and documents… to find out what buried memories have been almost lost or forgotten.’ For Tane, the architect is less of a creator and more of a translator, someone who interprets the whispers of history into the language of steel, wood, and light. ‘The process of searching and researching allows deep thinking and gives us surprises and the joy of encountering things that have been forgotten, erased or vanished due to global modernization.’

tsuyoshi tane | image by yoshiaki tsutsui

case study imperial hotel tokyo: structure as a container of time

One of the most anticipated ‘excavations’ in his current portfolio is the renovation of Tokyo’s legendary Imperial Hotel. It is a project heavy with ghosts, sitting on a lineage that includes the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. For Tane, this isn’t about mere restoration; it’s about a ‘new modernism’ that honors 130 years of history while addressing a green, contemporary Tokyo. he treats the existing site as a living organism rather than a static monument, looking for ways to integrate the weight of the past into the lightness of tomorrow. ‘the new will always eventually become old and be forgotten,’ tane notes of his philosophy. ‘to avoid that fate, we can uphold the legacy of the past and use those memories to create the future.’

His approach to material is equally grounded. from the Tane Garden House on the Vitra campus, which utilized local stone and thatch, to his larger urban interventions, there is a tactile honesty in his work. ‘We take architecture as a language… learning from local crafted maturity to take into our project,’ he notes. He views memory as a structural element itself, stating, ‘until now, the structure was only the engineering, but actually we put the memory and the structure of the building together.’ He describes his experience with Wright’s work as ‘something akin to a symphony, with its dramatic spatial composition and use of light and furnishings,’ a feeling he hopes to translate into his own structural choices.

vitra tane garden house | image by Julien Lanoo, Courtesy of ATTA and Vitra

memoryscapes at louisiana: bridging geology and the social

In ‘Memoryscapes,’ Tane proves that architecture can be a bridge. By looking deep into the geological and anthropological layers of a site, he creates buildings that feel like they have always been there, yet belong entirely to tomorrow. This is evident in the films produced by the Louisiana Channel and showcased in the exhibition, which document his studio’s working method. They reveal a practice that values the slow process of ‘thinking with the hands,’ where models are built from found materials to test how a building might sit within its historical context.

This focus on ‘site specific architecture’ is what makes Tane’s work so resonant in an era of rapid displacement and climate uncertainty. As we face the homogenization of our cities, his ‘archaeological’ method offers a grounded, soulful path forward. ‘All places have memories,’ Tane asserts. ‘Architecture inherits the memories and carries them into the future.’ It suggests that the answers to our current urban crises might not be found in new technologies alone, but in the forgotten wisdom of how we once lived with the land. It is a radical humility that places the site above the ego of the architect.

at the louisiana, tane’s installation is a sensory overload of research | image by Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects

museum shows site specific interventions as the ultimate catalyst

Tane’s work is less about looking backward with nostalgia and more about finding a launchpad for innovation. The exhibition at Louisiana serves as a testament to this, showing how ‘productionscapes’ and ‘memoryscapes’ can revitalize traditional professions and local cultures. he isn’t interested in museums that preserve the past in amber; he wants factories, hotels, and gardens that pulse with the energy of what came before.

‘Memory is not something from the past,’ Tane concludes. ‘Memory is the energy for the future.’ It is this energy that drives ATTA to continue digging, ensuring that every project is not just a building, but a continuation of a story that started long before we arrived and will continue long after we are gone. At the Louisiana, visitors are invited to start looking at the ground beneath their feet. ‘We want to build architecture that drives our time forward and creates memories in the future,’ Tane says, a final nod to the cycle of time his work seeks to inhabit.

archaeological research | image by Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects

imperial hotel tokyo | image by Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects

installation image of ‘memoryscapes’ at the louisiana museum of modern art | image by camilla stephan

project info:

name: Architecture Connecting II: Memoryscapes – Archaeology of the Future

architect: ATTA – Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects

location: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark

dates: january 22, 2026 – may 17, 2026

The post ‘architecture begins from the memory of a place’: tsuyoshi tane on archaeology of the future appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.