ZONA SARPI

ZONA SARPI is a platform that promotes the network of design-related cultural projects and events in the Paolo Sarpi neighborhood that will develop along Via Paolo Sarpi, involving the Centro Culturale Cinese, with projects hosted at Fabbrica del Vapore and the ADI Design Museum. It also involves the many operators in the neighborhood and also the Chinese community, which is turning a century old in Milan and celebrating by enlivening Zona Sarpi for the Milano Design Week 2024.

The project is sponsored and recognized as a district by the City of Milan.

The artistic direction of ZONA SARPI is entrusted to Michele Brunello, an inhabitant of the district and founding architect of DONTSTOP architecture that deals with urban projects with a social breath, and Luca Fois, a creative consultant among the historical fathers of Milan's design districts such as Zona Tortona, both of whom have always been promoters of international relations and collaborations between Italy and China.

ZONA SARPI is developed in collaboration with the hybrid and active community of the neighborhood: designers, companies and institutions will tell the quality of Chinese design and lifestyle in connection with the projects of the Milanese and international design community.

Among the most striking interventions, produced and set up by DONTSTOP Architettura, will be the China Town Portal: a temporary graft, created with creative Tommaso Lanciani and street artist Pao, that takes Milanese and Chinese stylistic features and enriched with drawings made by children in the neighborhood.

ZONA SARPI has three main hubs in the district:

Via Paolo Sarpi and the Chinese Cultural Center: the epicenter of the district will be enlivened by prototypes and urban design experiments carried out by independent designers who will display their works on the windows of clubs and stores and in the public space of the street.

In addition to the Portal, site-specific projects and decorative graphics on the street with a "food design" theme.

The Chinese Cultural Center will host several workshops, such as that of the RO.UP group, which will offer an installation and workshop activities on the theme of garment reuse

The strategic theme of Design for the world of children will be declined, in collaboration with the newly formed Milano Kids Design Week and the International Master's Program in Design for Kids & Toys.

In addition, synergies are planned with entities that have been animating the design debate for years, such as LOM Officine Monumentale, Luisa Delle Piane's Gallery of Excellence, designer Francesco Faccin's studio, and the nearby Fondazione Sozzani and the exhibtion Cinzia Ruggeri | Paper Threads at Fabbrica del Vapore.

Fabbrica del Vapore: Zona Sarpi has an active collaboration with Fabbrica del Vapore, the area's main cultural institution, which for Milano Design Week 2024 proposes the theme " Trasformazioni e innovazioni quotidiane." The Ex Cisterne spaces of the Fabbrica del Vapore will host the exhibition "Changes, Know Now China," featuring a selection of projects promoted by Chinese cities and design weeks. With more than 20 projects on display, the exhibition theme explores the ongoing changes that are altering the Chinese lifestyle, and consequently contemporary design around the world.

Design Week China, universities, research institutes, designers and companies attentive to research and development will present in Milan a kaleidoscope of projects that represent the contemporary change taking place, in dialogue with the Community of designers that animates ZONA SARPI.

On display will be products that reinterpret "Zen Design" in a contemporary key, developed in dialogue with a Buddhist monk who will also propose moments of meditation and traditional ceremonies, such as the tea ceremony.

ADI Design Museum: a selection of industrial products of excellence developed between China and the West will be on display.

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Promoter of the initiative: Milan China Design Center
With the support of: Camera di Commercio Italo Cinese and Associazione Culturale Huaxia
With the collaboration of: Worlds Design Weeks, Beijing Design Week, Suzhou Design Week, Shenzhen Design Week, Shanghai Design Week
Main Sponsor: Gruppo Huaxia
Produced by: The Playful Living (Coordination Camilla Fraboni), DONTSTOP Architettura - società del Gruppo Progetto CMR (Coordination Marco Grattarola) e Beijing Keyi (Coordination Angelo LI)
Art direction: Michele Brunello and Luca Fois
Creative advisor:  Stephan Hamel, Arte Applicata
Via Paolo Sarpi e Fabbrica del Vapore exhibition design: DONTSTOP Architettura and Giuseppe Scarri
ADI exhibition design: IS architecture & design curated by Fabrizio Gurrado
Visual identity: The Playful Living (curated by di Elvira Zhao)
A special thanks to Vittorio Sun Qun and Angela Zhou
With the participation and involvement of the entire Canonica-Sarpi-Bramante neighborhood