By the time Milan’s Design Week has come to an end, the city feels as though it has lived several weeks in a few days: streets that normally move at an orderly pace become crowded from morning until late evening; historic courtyards fill with visitors while former factories reopen as temporary cultural spaces, and showrooms stay bright long after dark. Conversations drift from cafés, hotel lobbies, taxis, tram stops, and museum entrances in a dozen languages at once.
For one week each spring, Milan does not simply host an event, it becomes the event. At the center of it all is, of course, the Salone del Mobile, founded in 1961 and still the most influential gathering in the world for furniture and contemporary living. round it grows the Fuorisalone, the citywide constellation of installations, exhibitions, product launches, talks, and experiments that transformed neighborhoods across Milan into an open map of global creativity.
