07.01.2025

Salone del Mobile 2023

Building design

The fashion metropolis of Milan is once again inviting visitors to this year’s exhibition of international furniture design. From April 18 to 23, 2023, two thousand exhibitors will be showcasing their latest furniture and furnishings at the Fiera Milano Rho exhibition center. However, the Salone del Mobile aims to stand out from the dense calendar of events with more than just its exhibits and program. The exhibition questions the framework conditions under which it will take place again in 2023: climate change, including the conservation of resources and sustainability efforts.

The Salone del Mobile has already come up with sustainability concepts – or rather approaches – in recent years. For example, carpeting was not laid. In 2021, exhibiting companies were asked to use prefabricated shelving systems for presentation (“Democratization of Design” by Stefano Boeri, who is also responsible for the vertical forest in Milan and soon in Dubai). However, many of these ideas remained ephemeral rays of hope in the commercialized design economy. Since 2018, the design platform Alcova by the artist collective Space Caviar, which takes place annually at the same time as the Salone in Milan, has provided a contrasting program to the prestigious Salone del Mobile. Here, for the first time in 2023 at the former Porta Vittoria slaughterhouse, students, academics and young artists deliberately come together not only to taste, but also to network, discover and learn. A look back at the past year can be found in the report by Baumeister editor-in-chief Fabian Peters: Alcova 2022.

However, as every year, buyers, interested parties and industry experts make the pilgrimage to the Salone del Mobile almost 13 kilometers across Milan city centre as the crow flies. The exhibition is now not only a member of the United Nations Global Compact, a pact that has existed since 1990 to promote corporate responsibility with regard to human rights, labor rights and the environment, among other things. The Salone is also trying to achieve the standards for ISO certification as a sustainable event management company. The demands on its own planning are high: no less than financial, social and ecological responsibility should characterize the actions and decisions at the Salone del Mobile 2023. One way of trying to achieve this is by involving the organizers themselves and asking them to prioritize sustainable suppliers and the traceability of supply chains. However, these recommendations are not binding, they are merely intended to serve as a catalyst to bring about a sustainable change in the trade fair culture.

This year, 170,300 square meters of exhibition space will be used. At the 61st Salone del Mobile, almost two thousand exhibitors will be showcasing their goods and new designs and courting potential customers. New trends, colors and materials, patterns and processing techniques are not only due to technological and craft innovations. New design deliberately sets itself apart from the past, creating a visually perceptible temporal discrepancy between the present and the outdated past. Especially in the present, in which we are drilled to believe that new is good and old is potentially outdated, our subconscious tends to fall prey to the belief that “new is always better”. In the logic of now, a design exhibition without innovations robs itself of its own basis for existence. The question of how we can wriggle out of the dilemmas of the throwaway and wasteful society would be excellent food for thought for a truly innovative industry revolution.

A total of seven exhibitions are grouped together under the Salone del Mobile. Six of these are the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition as well as S.Project, Workplace3.0 and SaloneSatellite. The latter is especially dedicated to young designers under 35. Around 30 percent of the exhibitors are from abroad (excluding the SaloneSatellite). The biennial Euroluce lighting trade fair has been included in the concept as the seventh exhibition – which this year is rolling out the red carpet for Japanese star architect and Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban, among others. The focus here is on synergies from the presentation of furniture and lighting. The fusion of both exhibitions will also take place on a single floor with a new tour concept; optimized routes and complete accessibility for all visitors are the focus of the Salone del Mobile, according to President Maria Porro.

This year’s concept also includes a stronger integration of the digital presence into the event. The Salone del Mobile homepage offers a wealth of background information and features. In this way, more people can be reached without them having to make costly (and CO2-emitting) journeys. For example, the “Unboxing” video series aims to present products (just like the classic unboxing videos, in which new products are taken out of their packaging and examined for the first time). With the so-called “White Papers”, renowned international journalists participate in the coverage of the Salone del Mobile. Podcasts also focus on the exhibiting companies and the products they are presenting. In this way, the dialog will not only take place on site in the lounges, but also in the headphones and loudspeakers of those interested at home.

With the “Welcome Project”, the Salone del Mobile is cooperating with the Milan administration, the Fondazione Fiera Milano and the local design schools over an eight-year period. The aim of the Welcome Project is to commit to “inclusion, outreach and education” and to offer regional design and architecture schools a platform for representation. This means that the Salone has an exciting future in the coming years. After all, by involving educational institutions, not only the students but also the Salone del Mobile itself will benefit from the proximity to the young avant-garde in terms of design and innovation.

Apart from the sustainability requirements, this exhibition of superlatives is ultimately not only an established industry highlight, but also a significant economic factor for Milan in northern Italy. Away from industry and air pollution, the city has long been searching for a new, positive identity – and has found a grateful figurehead in the potential of the Salone del Mobile. Mayor Guiseppe Sala is also delighted: “Milan welcomes designers, planners, architects and manufacturers and we are delighted to be able to introduce design-loving visitors and tourists to the innovative developments of the Salone – on the exhibition grounds and beyond.” What will be made of this in the future is perhaps written in the stars. Or perhaps it will become clear when looking into the glistening light fixtures of Euroluce.

The Salone del Mobile.Milano will take place from April 18 to 23, 2023 from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Milan Rho exhibition center. The exhibition is open to all visitors from Saturday to Friday; students have access on Friday. You can find more information about visiting here and here on the Salone website.

Incidentally, this most important furniture and design fair in the world took place in 2021 as a “Supersalone ” with a new concept and significantly slimmed down. Find out what the Milan Salone del Mobile 2022 had to offer here.

09.01.2025

Portfolio

Concealed hardware technology for commercial glass doors

Building design

BaSys has expanded its “Pivota® DX Glass” hinge, developed for glass doors, into a system suitable for use in buildings. The hinge with a mounting box forms a single unit with the lock, lock case and lever handle. The components are coordinated in design and are flush with the frame mirror. Magnetically held cover plates ensure a screw-free appearance.

The frame part of the hinge disappears into the frame, the sash part into a box that is permanently screwed to the glass door and matches the frame size. It is made of solid aluminum and offers a wide range of surface design options, allowing the design to be adapted to the decorative fitting and the lockable lock case, which is suitable for the property. In combination with the continuous sealing system of the door leaf, the Pivota® DX Glass is recommended for sound-insulating glass elements.

With the Pivota® DX product family, BaSys has developed a complete range of concealed hinges. With load-bearing capacities of 40 to 350 kilograms per pair, it covers the entire door spectrum.

BaSys uses steel, stainless steel and aluminum in a balanced way, depending on the load-bearing capacity requirements, within the framework of hybrid technology. This makes the system universal: on the one hand, wooden doors can be exchanged for glass doors and vice versa, and on the other hand, a uniform architectural approach can be pursued, preferably in larger buildings with doors made of different materials.

BaSys – Bartels Systembeschläge GmbH
Industrial estate Echternhagen 2
32689 Kalletal
www.basys.biz

22.12.2024

Opportunities

The future of the churches

Building design

At the beginning of 2016, the Wüstenrot Foundation awarded prizes in its nationwide competition “Church buildings and their future” for special projects that renovated, converted or repurposed churches. The 291 entries included many examples of how church buildings and community centers can be preserved as a visible part of cultural identity. We spoke to Dr. Stefan Krämer, Head of the “Science and Research” department at the Wüstenrot Foundation.

Churches in Germany are facing major challenges. Declining parishioner numbers, changing usage requirements and high costs for the maintenance and operation of church buildings require a sustainable strategy to preserve church buildings. However, we believe that it is not only the churches that are responsible for these tasks, but society as a whole, as churches are the bearers of our cultural identity. There has not yet been a general overview of the architectural transformation of churches. Although the Christian churches or the EKD Institute in Marburg, for example, present individual projects for the conversion of churches, a broader overview has been lacking to date. We therefore decided to launch the competition “Church buildings and their future” to contribute to the development of successful strategies for church conversion.

What developments do you see in this area?

The peak of this trend has not yet been reached. Viable strategies still need to be developed in order to save church buildings from decay and convert them in an economically, culturally and urbanistically sensible way. The city of Stuttgart, for example, is planning to set up a working group to develop a plan for the next 20 years. In my experience, Bavaria is only at the beginning of the process of finding a strategy for the future use of church buildings in the context of social change. A lot will definitely happen here.

Which projects in your competition did you personally particularly like?

I think many of the entries were very successful. This time, we awarded prizes to two particularly outstanding designs, otherwise there is only ever one “1st place” in our competitions. It was very important to us to highlight two different usage strategies, on the one hand the realization of a functional church and on the other a project that demonstrates the possibility of collaboration with a cooperative sponsorship. The newly created spatial structure of the Catholic Heilig-Geist-Kirche of the St. Martinus parish in Olpe enhances the quality of the building, also in terms of urban planning. A reduction in size with a new space utilization concept is the more common variant of a redesign. To preserve the Protestant church in the Bochum-Stahlhausen district, those responsible chose to work with a multicultural educational association. The church is now used both in a sacred setting and as a district center for social educational work. This project certainly serves as a role model.

Were there also projects in which stonemasons were involved?

We see ourselves more as an interface between architects and clients. In this respect, the focus was on the interaction between these parties. However, as far as I know, stonemasons were involved in some projects. For example, in the conversion of St. Joseph’s Church in Aachen into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The conversion of church buildings into columbaria is particularly interesting both for the churches, as the sacred use can often be retained and a refinancing strategy is already integrated, and for stonemasons, who can carry out the work on the stone. As experts in the field of funerals, many opportunities open up for them. With burial churches, it is very important that an overall picture is created that captures the aura of the place, but also arranges the urn spaces efficiently. The aim was not to create walls of shelves like in a library, but a place that also creates islands for silence and mourning. Architects are not the only ones in demand for this design implementation.

What special insights were you able to gain?

In a comparison within Germany, the new federal states are probably the most advanced with their building projects in this field. As church buildings were no longer used in the GDR era and later – often for financial reasons – did not find their way back to their intended purpose, the question of their future has perhaps been around for a little longer. It is also interesting to note that, in my experience, it is often easier to convert Catholic churches than Protestant ones. Profanation is easier because Protestant church buildings often already have an integrated community center. Many memories of life in the parish are attached to it. The space takes on a different meaning.

In STEIN in June 2016, we take a closer look at the potential of redesigning sacred spaces for stonemasons. You can find out more about the “Church buildings and their future” competition and other Wüstenrot Foundation projects here.