Share the Armrest: Back from Milan!

I spent the past week in Milan, Italy at the International Furniture Fair. The six-day event plays host to thousands of manufacturers and furniture designers from around the world. The range of people exhibiting is quite wide - from emerging designers looking for people to produce their work to established giants in Italian manufacturing. Most of the booths are located in one huge exhibition center but hundreds more were scattered all over the city.

Three of the other grad girls and myself formed a travel group but there were quite a few other RISD students attending the show. RISD, itself, sponsored a booth and displayed the work of a class that was formed specifically for that purpose.

There was a lot of amazing work and it was interesting to see the entire industry, in all its different forms, together in one place. Our feet were so tired by the end of each day. We were surrounded by furniture but didn't have any time to sit down. Below are some of the highlights.

This is probably my favorite piece from the whole show! I love the leather netting holding the upholstered cushions together.

This table was at the Droog exhibition. The glass vases were placed on the table while still hot creating the burn marks on the table surface and allowing the glass to freely slump into its final shape.

These girls are wearing computers that recognize the black and white images scattered about the room and project a 3D virtual image onto the screen in the headset. The technology was not quite ready for this experience but I enjoyed the idea of capturing the experience of furniture in a digital format.

This booth is by Front - a group of four girls from Sweden. I always like their work.

This was one of my favorite booths. At the end of my time at RISD I have to put together a show of my own work. The space we are given is basically a white box but we are allowed to do pretty much anything to it as long as it is reversible. I got a lot of good ideas from the booths at Milan.