Highlights from Milan Design Week 2025: Exhibition edition

After sharing his highlights from among Milan Design Week’s apartment tours, Australian Design Review’s brand manager Alvin Wu rounds up his favourite exhibitions from the event.

Taking place from 8 to 13 April, Milan Design Week 2025 was a bustling festival of exhibitions, tours, product launches, presentations, workshops and parties, including the return of the biennial exhibition Euroluce. With so much to see in one week, it was difficult to scratch the surface of all that the 63rd edition had to offer. Here are just some of the exhibition highlights from Milan Design Week 2025.

Alcova

North of Milan in Varedo, Alcova returned for their ninth iteration.

The program followed the same strategy this year: ‘four sites, one design path’. Across four distinct venues, each with its own atmosphere, visitors viewed the work of established and emerging designers displayed in site-specific installations and curated exhibitions that resonated with their surroundings. The venues included the historic residences of Villa Borsani and Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, the former SNIA factory and the Pasino Glasshouses.

Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, a 19th-century architectural gem built for the noble Milanese Bagatti Valsecchi family as a summer retreat, invited spatial exploration through its grand halls, intimate rooms, and expansive formal Italian and English-style gardens with hidden grottos.

Meanwhile, the Pasino Glasshouses, nestled within the greenery of the outdoor gallop track adjacent to Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, were once home to one of Europe’s largest white orchid cultivations.

A remarkable example of rationalist architecture, the former SNIA factory is a sprawling industrial relic that has been abandoned for more than 20 years. Overgrown with ivy and moss, the site revealed an interplay of industrial decay and nature’s reclamation.

Villa Borsani once again hosted collectible design pieces in dialogue with its 1945 modernist architecture. Designed by Osvaldo Borsani as a family home, the villa stands as a rare and impeccably preserved example of his layered style, complete with distinctive artistic features, including a fireplace by Lucio Fontana.

Designers display their latest creations across four different sites at Alcova. Photography: Piergiorgio Sorgetti

Soft Witness

Soft Witness, a design practice founded by Whitney Krieger that explores the intersection of memory and function, presented ‘In Repose’ at Milan Design Week as part of Alcova. In Repose encompassed new and limited-edition works made in collaboration with Venetian and Florentine artisans.

Krieger revealed her statement Cono Chair in a camel-coloured baby alpaca mohair, the Tienilo Occasional Table and a Sfondo partition topped with handmade glass finials, as well as special-edition works stemming from her debut collection, such as the Joan Side Table and Patty Sconce.

“I believe that in stillness, reflection and repose, we find our most peace,” Krieger says. “With In Repose, I wanted to create a scene that could allow someone to do just that and usher in insight on how creativity never arrives out of force.”

‘In Repose’ displayed new and limited-edition works made by Soft Witness in collaboration with Venetian and Florentine artisans as part of Alcova. Photography: Neige Thebault

Aesop

The Second Skin installation by skincare brand Aesop took place at the historic 15th-century church, Chiesa del Carmine, located in the heart of Brera. The exploration of dermis and design took inspiration from both the skin’s functions of regulation, protection and sensation, and the entrance halls that are a signature of so many Milanese buildings.

The central Second Skin structure, the focus of the experience, was constructed in the sacristy in compelling dialogue with its solemn surrounds. Here, Aesop’s Eleos Aromatique Hand Balm was repurposed into a mortar for its walls. These textured surfaces emanated Eleos’ woody aroma, while reflections of undulating water evoked the surface of perspiring skin, with the amplified sound of a single drop of water marking each second.

The church’s cloisters housed a row of basins specially made by Aesop for the installation, inspired by utilitarian schoolyard sinks. Basins are a signature motif of Aesop’s stores, where assistants help customers test out products, washing and massaging creams into their hands. This idea was played upon in the installation with the basins raised on plinths, offering all the chance to perform moments of (literally) elevated hand care.

The Second Skin installation by skincare brand Aesop explored ‘dermis and design’. Photography: Aesop

Foscarini

The installation ‘CAOS PERFETTO – Scratched stories of light’, curated by Bennet Pimpinella, transformed the digital publishing project “What’s in a Lamp?” into a physical experience at Foscarini Spazio Monforte. It guided visitors through an exploration of works by the other 18 artists involved in the project. It offered a journey behind the scenes of creativity to discover a kaleidoscope of creative interpretations of Foscarini’s lamps.

Eighteen artists offered creative interpretations of Foscarini’s lamps for ‘CAOS PERFETTO – Scratched stories of light’. Photography: Giuliano Koren

Humanscale

Humanscale unveiled Humanscale Living at Milan Design Week.

For more than 40 years, Humanscale’s award-winning designs have pioneered comfort and wellbeing in the workplace. Humanscale Living built on this heritage of ergonomic excellence, bringing a softer, more residential aesthetic to the home office while also introducing new categories, including stools, tables and lounge seating such as the Diffrient Lounge chair, eFloat Quattro table, Sedeo, Freedom, Summa and Trea Task Lite.

Humanscale unveiled Humanscale Living at Milan Design Week. Photography: Marek Swoboda Fotografia

Salvatori

Salvatori presented an immersive showcase of innovation, elegance and craftsmanship in natural stone during this year’s Milan Design Week. The brand debuted two standout collections: Nagi, a serene stone texture by Yabu Pushelberg, and Nereo, a sculptural bathroom collection by Elisa Ossino. Set in the heart of Milan’s Brera district, Salvatori’s iconic Via Solferino showroom transformed into a sensory journey through design and materiality.

Nagi evoked the ripple effect of water, with soft, undulating lines that form a dynamic, three-dimensional surface. Inspired by the Japanese word for calm seas, the texture blends tranquillity with visual rhythm, available in Salvatori’s signature stones like Bianco Carrara, Pietra d’Avola and Verde Antico. The tiles can be laid in multiple configurations, allowing designers to create flowing, meditative patterns.

Nereo interprets natural stone through bold, fluid forms with softened edges that suggest erosion by wind and water. Vanity units come in various sizes and finishes, with options in stone or wood, offering both integrated and countertop basins.

Ossino’s design philosophy highlights the natural essence of the stone, bringing together functionality and sculpture.

Salvatori”s showcase of innovation, elegance and craftsmanship in natural stone. Photography: Salvatori

Dilmos

Dilmos gallery unveiled Fragmenti, a captivating new collection by Daniele Papuli that explores the boundary between sculpture and functional design.

Known for his 30-year exploration of paper as a structural medium, Papuli created a visionary environment where furniture became both sensory and sculptural. Each piece – ranging from tables and vanities to bookcases and consoles – is handcrafted, merging form, touch and imagination.

Papuli transformed recycled and FSC-certified paper into thin strips, shaping them into polychrome inlays, sometimes blended with Isocell fibre and natural pigments. This crafting process yielded pieces with surprising material depth and organic references, like a knot in a table corner resembling tree bark or marine fossil-like round surfaces.

Guiding the experience was ULA, a suspended site-specific installation made from hand-cut white sheets of paper that floats like a soft, luminous cloud, reinforcing the intimate and contemplative mood of the exhibit.