Highlights from Milan Design Week: Apartment edition

Fresh off a visit to Milan Design Week, a yearly pilgrimage which attracts nearly half a million design lovers to the Italian city, Australian Design Review’s brand manager Alvin Wu shares his favourite apartment tours from the event.

Alongside the official furniture fair, Salone del Mobile, Milan Design Week features several apartment tours where designers or brands from around the world are invited to curate spaces without making structural changes. From the classically Italian L’Appartamento by Artemest to the Muuto Milan Apartment, an atmospheric and Scandi immersion, these spaces showcase the diverse possibilities of interior styling and curation.

Here are some of the highlights from the week.

Muuto Milan Apartment

Inspired by the passing of a year and its seasons, Muuto Milan Apartment in Brera presented different atmospheric spaces that offered new perspectives on how design can influence daily life and wellbeing. It invited visitors to awaken their senses and explore transitions.

Weaving together light, colour, form, texture and scent, the exhibition reflected the feeling of changing seasons. Each room offered a distinct experience, from energetic warmth and quiet introspection to a sense of refreshing renewal. It provided a welcoming chance to pause, reflect and reconnect with the natural rhythms that shape our experiences and perceptions over time.

The Muuto Milan Apartment also introduced a selection of future designs, including the Looped Lamp by Switzerland-based designer Dimitri Bähler, with its calming, adjustable light and unique mouth-blown glass and the Midst Table by TAF Studio with a new tabletop in Dark Grey Marble. Also on display is the recently launched Beam Table Lamp in H45 by Tom Chung.

Muuto Milan Apartment presented different atmospheric spaces. Photography: Muuto

L’Appartamento by Artemest

For its third edition, L’Appartamento by Artemest celebrated the timeless allure of Italian craftsmanship and design through the lens of six international interior design studios, including Brigette Romanek (USA), Meyer Davis (USA and England), Champalimaud (USA), Nebras Aljoaib (Saudi Arabia), 1508 London (UK, Singapore, USA, UAE and Brazil) and Australia’s own Simone Haag.

Each studio transformed a distinct room inside Palazzo Donizetti, a 19th-century architectural masterpiece, working in isolation from each other. They showcased an extraordinary selection of furniture, lighting, home décor and art by Artemest’s collaborators.

A highlight was the foyer, styled by Haag. Her eclectic selection of contemporary art stood out against its Italianate backdrop.

Apartments styled by international studios for L’Appartamento using pieces available through Artemest. Photography: Tomaso Lisca and Luca Argenton

Brera Design Apartment

Brera Design District presented a preview of Orizzonti (Horizons), the new layout of the Brera Design Apartment designed by Zanellato/Bortotto Studio.

Centred around the Fuorisalone theme of ‘Connected Worlds’, the district’s ‘house’ in the heart of Brera consisted of several visions of designers who have followed one another over the years.

Orizzonti synthesised the vision of Zanellato/Bortotto Studio in collaboration with Nathalie Borgeaud. It celebrated quality craftmanship, the history and peculiarities of places, memory and tradition by using surfaces, colours and materials as a vehicle for writing a new narrative.

Brera Design District presented a preview of Orizzonti (Horizons), the new layout of the Brera Design Apartment designed by Zanellato/Bortotto Studio. Photography: Irene Gaggia

Molteni&C

Designed as an urban pavilion in the heart of Milan’s vibrant via Manzoni, Palazzo Molteni showcased the identity and values of Molteni&C. It is both a Molteni&C Flagship Store and a breeding ground for cultural exchange and collaboration.

The palazzo was originally constructed in the late 19th century as a residence for a prominent Milanese family. In 1922, the building underwent a transformation led by Italian designers Giuseppe Mentasti and Stefano Lissoni to incorporate Italian ‘Liberty’ (Art Nouveau) flourishes that complement the neoclassical architecture, adding a layer of charm and unique history.

Palazzo Molteni showcased the identity and values of Molteni&C at Milan Design Week. Photography: Alvin Wu

Mediterranea – Andamento Lento at Casaornella

Casaornella offered a retreat from the urban frenzy as a space for exchange and experimentation.

Designer and art director Maria Vittoria Paggini curated and directed Casaornella to be a fluid, sensory interpretation of contemporary living.

Inside, the Mediterranea – Andamento Lento exhibition drifted between light, material and colour to create a narrative journey through the Mediterranean lifestyle, inviting guests to embrace its rhythm, warmth and suspended sense of time.