Waiting for the Salone del Mobile: from the roots to the future, the promise of the Supersalone

17 August 2021

On March 27, 2020, the official communication was launched: the Salone del Mobile had been canceled due to the pandemic. A real shock for the many people who revolve around it, for the companies in the sector that were ready, for the press, for the city of Milan and for the thousands of operators who are mobilized around the world on the occasion of this event. The industry has responded with vigor, the extreme experience of the lockdown has shifted attention to the house, its untapped potential and the need to make it current in its new functions. It is a topic on which designers and entrepreneurs agree: design and furniture must be rethought, because even when the emergency is over, the changes will remain and the awareness that it is time to make the home environment evolve.

And here is a new date for the Salone del Mobile which in this perspective will be open to the public, and not only to professionals, to welcome and share the culture of design, the most precious ally to make homes more liveable, functional and beautiful. The Exhibition will be held from 5 to 10 September 2021 at Fiera Milano Rho, in compliance with all safety measures and will be, as announced, the Supersalone. An all-encompassing event, an experience that is not only commercial but also social and, above all, cultural. Wide spread of this extraordinary sector which has always been the flagship of Italian industry.

The care is taken by the architect Stefano Boeri who with his studio has imagined a new layout for the fair: in fact, the setting includes long parallel partitions on the walls of which companies will be able to exhibit the new collections. “We know well that the September edition will be a different edition and given the exceptional nature of the moment it could not be otherwise, but if there is a red thread that binds it to the Salone del Mobile.Milano it will be the undisputed quality of the products on display ”: commented Claudio Feltrin, president of FederlegnoArredo.

It will be an extraordinary edition, a historic passage of which we will have the privilege of being witnesses. The Salone del Mobile, moreover, was born just after the Second World War, on the eve of the 1960s. Even then the way of living and designing was changing, even then we hoped for a reconstruction, a recovery that faced each other with great enthusiasm and commitment.

The first edition was held in September 1961, in halls 28 and 34 of the Milan Trade Fair. It was September, as will the Supersalone be in September. Contemporary design soon established itself, so much so as to generate, already in 1965, a dedicated pavilion. It is an important step because this design, with its many expressions and evolutions, will become the protagonist of this event and of the increasingly important and numerous collateral events. What we know today as Fuori Salone is in fact a moment of great attraction, studded with events of increasing depth. The large companies that animate their prestigious Milanese showrooms have also noticed this, transforming them into exclusive design theaters.

As per tradition, the Supersalone will give space to new talents of international design with the parallel event The Lost Graduation Show: dedicated to students of design schools from all over the world who, due to the pandemic, have not had a significant stage for show their end-of-course creations. And again, The Makers Show, a space dedicated to self-produced design, a great heritage of the author among which lines read new trends and stylistic evolutions. To summarize the concept of this new challenge is Maria Porro, newly elected president of the Salone del Mobile. Milan declaring: “Our goal is a strong, united, inclusive, sustainable and creative Salone del Mobile”.

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