Porta Venezia Design District 2024

Reflecting the inclusivity and diversity, intrinsic characteristics of the neighborhood, with Everythink is design, the district intends to include many different areas within the concept of design, understood in the wide sense of conception and design, almost a catalyst of the ferments that arise here. The concept is inspired by Paul Rand, a graphic design legend who has changed the opinion of visual communication. For Rand design is the method that allows the union between form and content and just like art, has multiple and infinite definitions.

“Everything is Design. Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.” (Paul Rand)

Rand leaves us an inclusive and contemporary vision that welcomes different expressions of design, because at the basis of these there is a simple and universal language that is its strength, so EverythinK is design. In the 2024 edition of L’Altro District, there is a strong focus on new trends and emerging designers, young talents who, like the district, are not afraid to dare and want to open their eyes to new experiments that turn to the future and the protection of the environment. Porta Venezia Design District is a vibrant district that has made of its desire for aggregation a push towards a new approach that sees in design a possible dialogue between citizens, designers, historical architecture and social and environmental evolutions aimed at enhancing the territory.

"In Porta Venezia history meets the future. Research continues in the identification of innovative expressive codes, contamination made possible thanks to the inclusive language of design. The involvement of MEET Digital Culture Center - the first International Center for Art and Digital Culture born in Milan with the support of Fondazione Cariplo and the International Design Institute Raffles Milano, reveals a constant tension towards change and the exploration of new design scenarios, demonstrating that design is never just a story of objects, but rather of thoughts and people. This year Porta Venezia is a creative factory, whose main actors are young designers who interpret a complex cultural evolution. The schools generate an accumulation of ideas, research, signs, processes and new connections, places where an anarchist logic emerges, a primitive, irrational energy, which the district intends to enhance and preserve.  At the origin of an experience there is always something to learn, rather than to teach and equal to the We are structuring a project that aims to redesign an area of Milan. Reading a place with the practice of placemaking has allowed to re-imagine a public space through the participatory action of the realities present on the territory, using the chameleon language of design to combine infinite ideas and definitions, expressions of a cultural change” says Carlo Barbarossa, Creative Director Mktg&Comms Porta Venezia Design District.

 “The contemporary city is no longer just a collection of architectural boxes, but an experiential, passable and transformable territory. The quality of a place depends on what animates it and the social fabric that characterizes it. Re-functionalization of space thanks to design: this is the goal we have with the project Porta Venezia Design District, we want to focus on the enhancement of spaces, reinterpreting them in order to offer more services, not only to insiders and external visitors, but also – and above all – to those who live daily in the neighborhood. The city can be considered as a flexible system that records in real time the changing demand, and it is to that question that we must listen in order to be able to bring value within a neighborhood like Porta Venezia that has its own strong and recognized identity.” Ends Enzo Perego, Relationship Manager Porta Venezia Design District.

THE MULTIPLE DEFINITIONS OF DESIGN AND COMPANIES

Porta Venezia Design District offers an inclusive and contemporary vision of design and proposes projects that range between different areas united by elements, technologies, materials and the same thought that leads to their definition: EverythinK is design.

Innovation, training courses and young designers: the realities that will make the young protagonists will be different, starting with RAFFLES MILANO, the Milan headquarters of the International Design Institute that, together with its students signs the visual identity of the district and presents Design xEverythink a schedule of exhibitions and activities that interpret the changes in design. OUTPUMP – independent Italian media point of reference for the new generations – signs, in collaboration with the district, the installation WALLCOME: the initiative aimed at the main graphic design institutes of the city, that will ask new promises to create a series of posters expressing the theme EverythinK is design with particular attention to current events and upcycling. The CONSULATE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC will give the opportunity to the students of the Faculty of Multimedia Communication of Tomáš Baè University in Zlín, together with four other universities from around the world, to present the exhibition Identity/Identity: generational testimonies of young designers facing a series of new challenges.
The history meets the future with accessible design: Biblioteca Venezia located in Via Malpighi corner Via Melzo, in the heart of Porta Venezia, is the historic building that shows decorative elements and architectural developments in Art Nouveau style; 250sqm on two floors, home - at the beginning of 900 - the ancient Cinema Dumont, that still today is one of the busiest in the city thanks to the environment and numerous cultural initiatives, will host NOOK, Mara Bragagnolo. A project, Nook, that offers innovative furniture to ensure that autistic children can express themselves freely without meeting. History meets design also with the opening of Piscina Cozzi; while MILANOSPORT Spa will make available during Milan Design Week: the Cozzi Pool, the first indoor Italian swimming pool built by Eng. Luigi Secchi in 1934, which still gives corners of immaculate mosaics.
Technological and digital innovation: MEET reconfirms itself as the nerve center and headquarters of the Porta Venezia Design District, during the Milan Design Week will host the installation of metal and vegetable nets Zero Gravity Eden, is enriched by the work of Thierry Loa, Interdisciplinary director and creator of content for new media, and his work 21-22 USA. The technology company GOOGLE presents Making Sense of Color. An immersive journey from the ethereal to the material that shines a light on how color is elemental to sensing the world around us. Co-created by Google’s Vice President of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross and her design team in collaboration with the arts + research lab, Chromasonic. MONOLITE, the twin of the Digital Creative Agency MONOGRID, focused on physical design offers Momentum an alternative installation based on the interaction between person and AI. TOILETPAPER, the editorial project founded by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, presents the TOILETPAPER APARTMENT. This vibrant innovative space, accessible to the public during Design Week, will showcase the debut of the special edition TOILETALEXPAPERPRAGER, a photographic project born from the collaboration between the magazine and the American artist Alex Prager.
Sustainability, circular solutions and natural materials: the environment must be preserved and made inclusive for the greatest number of life forms, this is the goal of JOHANNA SEELEMANN X PARK ASSOCIATI and the Micrographia project that wants to support biodiversity. Sustainable mobility instead for BROMPTON JUNCTION MILANO with its famous folding bike, Made in England, moves fans around the world and will be a partner in mobility in the area presenting new titanium and wood bikes.  KRISTIINA LASSUS and ANNE KYYRO QUINN, although with different styles, are completed thanks to the use of sustainable materials, they create contemporary carpets respectively with natural materials and sculptural wall art of pure wool. Attention to the manufacture of materials with LASVIT, the Czech brand leader in glass processing, which presents at Palazzo Isimbardi Re/Creation, a monumental installation in molten glass to enhance the brand’s mastery and innovative approach to design, architecture and glass production. WonderGlass transforms Milan’s Istituto dei Ciechi with CONTRASTO, displaying two new lighting collections by nendo and Formafantasma. Mudima Foundation hosts COLLECTION PARTICULIERE that presents Natural disco a collection inspired by matter, nature and night, and DELCOURT COLLECTION, imagining the home of a knight with "Horses in my dreams" gives us an anatomy of matter that comes to life. Iron is the key element of SPAZIO MILESI that with Heavy Metal wants to tell a material that abandons its hardness and heaviness to become poetry, grace and charm, for lines that are heavy and light at the same time. APARTAMENTO STUDIOS and JULIA ESQUE present Inspired in Barcelona which uses clay as a primordial element in Terra Rossa, a pyramid of cantir reinterpreted by 15 Catalan designers.
The collectives: CAPSULE PLAZA selects designers and companies from different creative fields; the GOVERNMENT OF THE GENERALITAT OF CATALONIA presents Vision of Catalunya: Designing Crafts that involves Catalan professionals from different disciplines that propose innovative everyday objects; Melzododici presents its selection of companies such as BOON, TOOY and TEOREMA that mix luxury, innovation, Made in Italy and timeless design. HERIART ASSOCIATION promotes Asian culture globally through the creation and exhibition of high quality interdisciplinary art representing different voices from Southeast Asia and East Asia, This year presents the Gardening Asian Art Exhibition. Finally RAPT STUDIO with "Design is Language. Speak for Yourself" believes that the built environment is a social medium and that the role of design is to enrich the communication and the connection that it represents will tell his vision of design. Activation at Salone 2024 will be a call to action to see the built environment as a text, a story to share. Matria Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Italy by Spanish artist Iván Prieto, featuring a selection of works never before exhibited in Italy. The ultra-contemporary works of artist Iván Prieto focus on the human figure from perspectives evoking surrealistic aesthetics.

DESIGNER AND CURATORS

Milan, Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Prague, New York, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Tokyo, the protagonists who will take part in the Milan Design Week within the Porta Venezia Design District will be over 200, including: Ivy Ross, Chromasonic (Google), Alex Prager, Giampero Romanò & Andrea Ghisalberti (TOILETPAPER), Maxim Velcovsky, Claesson Koivisto Rune e Maria Culenova, Jan Plechac, Henry Wielgus (Lasvit), Johanna Seelemann (PARK ASSOCIATI), nendo, Formafantasma (WonderGlass), Pieter Maes, Stefano Giacomello, Atelier Pendnapa and Tom Hancocks together with Valeria Giacomozzi (BOON_Editions), Valerio Tidei, Federico Peri, Studiopepe e CARA\ DAVIDE (Tooy). Mattia Biagi e Cardenio Petrucci (MC+), Christophe Delcourt, Dan Yeffet, Luca Erba, Mathieu Delacroix and Yabu Pushelberg (Fondazione Mudima), Alessio Ascari, Paul Cournet (Capsule Plaza), Mara Bragagnolo (Nook), Apartamento Studios e Júlia Esque (Inspired in Barcelona), Ivan Prieto (Galleria Matria), David Galullo (Rapt Studio), Kristiina Lassus e Anne Kyyrö Quinn. Gianluca Milesi, Michiko Yamada, Kaiserin Alen Panganiban, Jasmine Parodi (Spazio Milesi), Thierry Loa, Migliore+Servetto (MEET Digital Culture Center) and all the young designers of RAFFLES Milano, the university promoted by the Czech Consulate and those of the institutes involved by Outpump project.