Milano Design Week – Austrian Exhibition turns Sala Reale into Design Pool: Over 40 top designers and manufacturers in the former imperial waiting room – ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA presents “Austrian Design – Pleasure & Treasure”.

The Sala Reale, once the waiting room of the Royal House of Savoy at Milan’s central station, is rarely accessible to the public and opened its doors for the first time during Milano Design Week for the exhibition “Austrian Design – Pleasure & Treasure”. Visitors could expect a unique scenographic experience: in order to view the Austrian furniture and interior design highlights up close, they had to wade through a spacious biodegradable foam bath. The magnificent Sala Reale became a design pool.

 

Credit: Laura Fantacuzzi / AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT AUSTRIA

 

Visitors had to wade through a sea of biodegradable foam on the upper floor of the former royal waiting room to find their way to the exhibits. This represented the fun and “pleasure” component.

 


Credit: Laura Fantacuzzi / AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT AUSTRIA

 


Credit: Laura Fantacuzzi / AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT AUSTRIA

 

The ground floor, on the other hand, was turned into a treasure chamber – the “treasure” component of the exhibition. The design highlights were showcased in a darkened hall, positioned on a black pedestal littered with pieces of chocolate gold. That the coins might go missing had already been taken into account by the organizers as visitors were permitted to take coins away as a souvenir.

 


Credit: Laura Fantacuzzi / AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT AUSTRIA

 


Credit: Laura Fantacuzzi / AUSSENWIRTSCHAFT AUSTRIA

 

The exhibition showcased top-class design products from across Austria – from home accessories to office furniture, and from tableware to lighting. The exhibits themselves were selected by a jury of experts based on criteria such as the degree of innovation, craftsmanship as well as formal, aesthetic and functional qualities. Among the curated exhibits were works by established design greats as well as by up-and-comers. The NEU/ZEUG label, for example, was showcased in Milan for the first time. The label operates at the interface between manufactured and digital porcelain production and was presenting its PEARLS lamp series. The design creations of Lisa Wolf were also presented to the specialist audience in Milan for the first time. Her clay works Ha & Ba is somewhere between art and product design and combines function with sculpture.

 

Renowned product designer Thomas Feichtner presented the Octagon Chair, which forms a figure of eight made from a total of twelve looped wires that overlap only in the seating surface. The steeped in tradition silverware workshop Wiener Silber Manufactur was founded in 1882 and played an important historical role as partner to some of the most prominent figures of the Wiener Werkstätte. This year it presented the tableware series Landscape, inspired by the decorative arrangements used in the ‘table landscape’ trend of the baroque era.

 

Lobmeyr designs can be found in large design collections such as the MoMA in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the MAK in Vienna. Marco Dessí and Lobmeyr have developed a new lighting concept with Ritter/The Knight. Starting from a sine curve, Dessí has developed a shape for a single lighting element that can be arranged and re-arranged to create ever new forms and shapes. The Alva shelving system by industrial designer Rainer Mutsch impresses not only with its airy, almost transparent appearance, but also thanks to its outstanding stability.