Rafael de Cárdenas Builds a Room at Salone del Mobile
Milan’s legendary design week, Salone del Mobile, and its many satellite fairs were only mildly cursed by rain this year—as is, at this point, to be expected. Besides the rain, another sustained trend still going strong since last year was a generally higher level of interesting products promoted by the more established participants at the main fair. A few years back, a satellite fair, Tortona, had stolen Salone’s thunder (so to speak…), but the main fair has successfully regained its footing and reincorporated most of the design-aggressive Italian brands. There were some strong designer/brand collaborations this year, and balancing these with the independents was no easy task. Interestingly, my selection of standouts this year suggests a room in the making—I’m redoing my apartment, so maybe it’s wishful thinking.
Rafael de Cárdenas is the principal of Architecture at Large.
