Milan prepares for Design Week: here is the map of events in the city
The programme schedule is constantly being updated: programmes in the main city districts are presented, from Brera to Tortona, from Isola to Durini, and on to the suburbs
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More than 60 years after the birth of the trade fair that would later evolve into the Salone del Mobile di Milano (Milan Furniture Fair), and more than 30 since the launch of that 'Fuorisalone' that integrates and completes its offer, there is no event that manages to animate the entire city of Milan, and to make people talk about itself months in advance, like Design Week, the formula that brings the two events together in an increasingly fluid and perfect osmosis.
Less than a month before the start of the fair (8-13 April 2025) and the Fuorisalone (7-13 April), the organisational machine is already running at full speed.
After all, this titanic event is not only a unique opportunity for updating, visibility, comparison and knowledge for the industry and the professional design community, but has also been an extraordinary business opportunity for all the production sectors in the region for years.
Milan's 'Ecosystem Design'
.Last year (when almost 371,000 visitors arrived at the Salone in Rho), the Chamber of Commerce estimated an economic impact on the city of more than 275 million euros, generated not only through the fair's activities, but also through 1,326 events mapped throughout the metropolitan area by the Report "(Eco) Sistema Design Milano", the first chapter of a broader project conceived and promoted by the Salone del Mobile with the scientific supervision of the Milan Polytechnic. Launched last year, the Report aims to measure the impact of the Salone and the Design Week connected to it on the city and the wider Lombardy region, establishing a permanent Observatory on the event. An impact that is not only economic and quantitative, but also social, cultural and qualitative, because it generates a knowledge system linked to design that Politecnico researchers - by cross-referencing data from various sources - estimate at 6,790 subjects, including companies, freelancers and self-employed workers, who carry out specialised design activities. There are more than 2,275 companies employing more than 10,000 people.
Milan and Lombardy lead in Italy in terms of the number of companies and employees and the added value of production linked to design, as confirmed by the figures in the Design economy report compiled by the Symbola Foundation over the last ten years. And Italy tops in Europe, with a supremacy witnessed every year by the success of the Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone.
