Salone 2008: Where’s the beef?

My first trip to the Salone del Mobile was in 2005, and as product design student I was blown away by the sheer amount of creativity, colors, forms, ideas and energy that came from every which way you looked. I felt both inspired and humbled upon my return to school. It all seemed new and different and on the cutting edge of what was coming.

This year I returned as a design professional, and while I knew I would be even more critical than before I likewise anticipated something that went beyond just another chair or lamp. I expected there to be something different…something unique and meaningful that would somehow underly the work at the Salone itself and the surrounding events in Milan.

To cut straight to the point, I certainly expected there to be more than just a handful of designers, companies, schools and manufacturers that gave a damn about the environment and how they were conducting themselves as designers. I also felt there would have to be some new way of thinking that went beyond the object itself; how did it get there, what was it made of, who made it and with what process, and where if anywhere does it belong?

Now that our world is an ever changing landscape of converging technology, and communication is instantaneous and permeating, I thought there would be some thread of enlightenment that would be picked up and explored by the mass collective of creative minds that converges upon Milan once a year.

What did I discover? Tired themes and cliched ideas that have been re-hashed into bad copies of themselves. Phillipe Starck’s XO exhibit looked like a yard sale put on by a Las Vegas based lawn-furniture manufacturer that was going out of business…however you knew it was his stuff because there was a 25-foot picture of him looking at himself in the mirror plastered on the wall above.

Kartell, as always, made me feel like I was having a bad acid trip, and Moroso which had some very nice pieces also had some very not-nice pieces, and a claustrophobic exhibit that was no where near as beautiful as it was in 2005. The Satellite, which I was the most excited to see, had a rather large sign saying GO GREEN! as you walked in, yet this seemed to simply mean they would paint all the walls green and hope you didn’t notice the lack of sustainable content.

I was left pondering the meaning of the whole thing. It seemed like a social event rather than a celebration of good design…an event with quite a massive carbon footprint to say the very least.

However now that some of that is off my chest, I will be able to share with you some good things that I discovered while there and the things that made the trip more than worth it.

• Posted by Leon at 7:45 pm
• Tagged: Rants and Raves, Salone Di Mobile 2008