The La La Lamp manufactured by Kundalini has been selected to be part of a permanent collection for the 'Fondazione Cosmit Eventi' (Italy).  This exhibition will continue to travel, showing the collections of the selected designers products to prestigious museums & galleries.

I was curious to see what the Milan Furniture Fair 2009 was going to be like this year.  Many friends & colleagues had decided to sit this year out.  Their thinking was that Milan was going to be a sober affair compared with previous years & that manufacturers were looking to be present just to show solidarity & long standing tradition.  In some ways most of this was true yet I felt that it was just as exciting as other years & that there was a clear shift towards more economical processes & materials used such as timbers instead of injection molded plastics.  Milan could not have been any bigger than last year which felt as though it had peaked (now larger than Milan Fashion Week in its attendance) although ultimately difficult times will result in designers & manufacturers having to consider their process & design more closely, and I feel that the result of this considered approach to manufacturing methods & materials used, will be evident in the timeline of design in the years to come. Overall designers will need to adapt to the current economy & I believe we will see some really interesting design as a result.

I saw some great things such as the floating lamp shades hung between buildings on Via Montenapoleone (pictured above) which immediately let you know the city was already in full swing for the ubiquitous fair.  Around the surrounding streets of Milan were installations such as that on Corso Como with hanging bamboo poles & aluminium pipes hung in a room creating a massive full scale chimed experience as you walked through.  Exhibitions such as 'Senseware' were also a highlight featuring new Japanese synthetic technologies http://www.tokyofiber.com/en/.

I felt one of the most interesting spaces for furniture design was the Established & Sons exhibition space.  It was completely created out of planks of wood put together like architectural scale birds nests which were used to separate each designers products http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFGnbXswOM8 which looked fantastic.

Although my biggest highlight was discovering the Achille Castiglioni Museum, which was made possible by an agreement with "Triennale di Milano". It is run by his daughter & wife and gives you an insight into the working life of this design legend.  It was really quite a moving experience & one that I think I will return to see with every annual visit to Milan. http://www.achillecastiglioni.it/en/studio.html

I also came across a great radio interview about this years Milan fair given by David Clark editor of Vogue Living (Australia) that I found really interesting & thought I would also add it here as he explains his highlights of Milan this year from his perspective - well worth a listen. http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2009/04/bdn_20090429_1530.mp3