milan design week 2025: installations around the city we'll remember

Standout installations shaping Milan Design Week 2025

As Milan Design Week 2025 comes to a close, we are taking a look at the installations that captivated visitors and transformed the city into a living, breathing exhibition space. From Es Devlin’s luminous Library of Light, where 3,000 glowing books invite visitors to pause and reflect, to Tokujin Yoshioka’s Frozen installation, where chairs crafted from ice melt away throughout the week, this year’s creations have sparked conversations on light, materiality, and the human connection to space. With Studio Drift’s kinetic bulbs at Portrait Milano and Marimekko’s giant bed at Teatro Litta, these installations immersed visitors in transformative experiences, leaving us with lasting memories of a truly unforgettable week.

image courtesy of MoscaPartners

LIBRARY OF LIGHT BY ES DELVIN ILLUMINATES CORTILE D’ONORE

British artist Es Devlin brings Library of Light to the 17th-century Cortile d’Onore in Milan, transforming the historic courtyard into a luminous, slowly revolving theater of reflection. On view until April 21st, 2025, the 18-meter-wide cylindrical structure houses over 3,000 glowing books, curated and donated by Italian publishing company Feltrinelli around the theme Thought for Humans, inviting visitors to pause, read, and even contribute titles of their own — extending the archive into the public library system of the city. Mirrored planes redirect daylight into the cloister’s shaded corners, while at night, the installation glows like a lantern, animated by voices including Benedict Cumberbatch reading from Carlo Rovelli and Devlin herself reciting Maria Gaetana Agnesi, the only woman immortalized in statue form in the courtyard. 

image by Monica Spezia

STUDIO DRIFT’S INSTALLATION FOR AUDI AT PORTRAIT MILANO

Dutch artist duo DRIFT turns the quiet courtyard of Portrait Milano Hotel into an immersive field in collaboration with Audi. Titled Drift Us, the installation features luminous, seed-like bulbs that sway as visitors move through the space, simulating a breeze passing through tall grass. Each bulb contains three weighted motors that create movement through physical imbalance—‘It’s how the installation moves,’ Lonneke Gordijn of Studio DRIFT explains during our conversation, ‘with a physical imbalance’—while custom-built sensors and software generate real-time responses to human presence. Wrapped in a custom translucent textile developed over two years, the robotic landscape invites visitors to become a force of nature themselves. ‘People that move through the installation affect the bulbs as if they were the wind,’ says Gordijn. ‘We want them to feel that they are a force of nature moving through this environment.’

image © Ronald Smits

MARIMEKKO AND LAILA GOHAR’S GIANT BED AT TEATRO LITTA

Marimekko teams up with artist and designer Laila Gohar to transform Teatro Litta into ALL THE THINGS WE DO IN BED—a candy-colored dreamscape where a giant bed becomes the stage for life’s softest, messiest, and most surreal moments. Draped in the bold prints by the Finnish company, including Maija Isola’s iconic the installation merges the everyday rituals of home life with the grandeur of theatrical performance. Visitors are invited to sprawl, snack, scroll, and sketch in a plush, joyfully exaggerated setting that feels equal parts slumber party and avant-garde set. Red-tinted lighting, striped side tables, and coordinated tableware amplify the immersive vibe, offering a playful nod to Gohar’s culinary roots and design sensibility.

The installation previews Laila Gohar for Marimekko, a capsule collection launching in September 2025. Curated by the New York–based creative—known for blending food, performance, and design—the collection reimagines bedroom essentials through her joyful lens. 

image courtesy of Marimekko

HERMÈS PRESENTS HOME COLLECTIONS IN SUSPENDED WHITE BOXES

Hermès reimagines La Pelota as an ethereal landscape of suspended white boxes and soft, glowing halos, showcasing their latest home creations in a strikingly minimal setting. Each box, hanging in delicate suspension, is illuminated from below by vibrant halos of light, which shift across the floor in a grid. ‘This year, it’s about glow, aura, the emotional presence of these objects that goes beyond their actual shape,’ Charlotte Macaux Perelman explains. The installation highlights the French manufacturer’s exploration of materiality, with glass taking center stage. The collection features mouth-blown glass pieces, such as the Casaque series with intricate patterns, and the Doublé d’Hermès oversized vases, each wrapped in contrasting leather cuffs. Complementing these pieces are leather, wood, and textile accents, including the Striped Dye and H Partition throws, which incorporate rare materials like 24-carat gold powder. 

image by Maxime Verret, courtesy of Hermès

LACHLAN TURCZAN BENDS LIGHT FOR GOOGLE SHOW IN MILAN

Lachlan Turczan’s interactive light sculptures shine at Google’s Making the Invisible Visible exhibition in Milan, where the artist transforms a darkened space into a glowing wonderland. Known for his work with light and water, Turczan’s Lucida sculptures respond to visitors’ movements, using sophisticated technology like lidar, infrared, and vision cameras to modulate the projected light. ‘The magic is happening in the optics,’ Turczan explains during our interview, describing how these technologies create the illusion of materiality through light. As visitors move through the space, the halos shift shape—folding and unfolding like a curtain in the wind—immersing them in an ever-evolving, tactile light experience. 

FORMAFANTASMA CURATES PRADA FRAMES IN CENTRAL STATION

Prada Frames takes over Milan Central Station’s Padiglione Reale and Arlecchino Train, curated by Formafantasma as part of its ongoing collaboration with Salone del Mobile. In its fourth edition, the annual symposium explores the theme In Transit, turning the spotlight on infrastructure—not as a fixed backdrop, but as a living system that enables, limits, and choreographs the movement of people, goods, data, and power. With a cross-disciplinary lineup, the event unpacks the paradoxes of global mobility, where objects navigate borders more easily than humans, and digital networks quietly reshape the world’s flows. Framed within the architecture of a major transport hub, the symposium becomes subject and setting at ince, a live reflection on the frictions, contradictions, and potentials of being in motion.

image courtesy of Prada

A JOURNEY THROUGH LIGHT AND SOUND BY KIA DESIGN

Kia Design’s exhibition at Milan Design Week 2025, Opposites United: Eclipse of Perceptions, showcases immersive works by artists Philippe Parreno and A.A. Murakami. Building on the brand’s core philosophy of Opposites United, the exhibition pushes creative boundaries, fusing art, technology, and sensory experiences. Parreno’s Marquee reimagines the traditional cinema frontage into a light-based, ephemeral artwork, while Murakami’s The Cave and Beyond the Horizon explore the intersection of primal creativity and cutting-edge technology. The immersive installations, including a performance stage titled The Eclipse, invite visitors to engage in a dialogue with Kia’s design narrative at the Museo della Permanente.

image courtesy of Kia Design

BYOUNG SOO CHO’S RED EARTH INSTALLATION AT PALAZZO LITTA

For Milan Design Week 2025, MoscaPartners takes over the Main Courtyard of Palazzo Litta with a commission by South Korean architect Byoung Soo Cho, part of the Moscapartners Variations exhibition 2025. Titled Nobody Owns the Land: Earth, Forest, Mahk, the site-specific installation unfolds as a sensory dialogue between humans and nature, rooted in Korean philosophy and material experimentation. A suspended plane of red earth hovers beneath the Baroque arches, echoing land detachment and grounding at once. Ink-washed columns reinterpret the forest through abstract gesture, while clusters of Mahksabal—imperfect Korean tea bowls—dot the space with handmade rhythm. 

GUCCI EXHIBITION PRESENTS BAMBOO AS A LIVING MATERIAL

Gucci’s Bamboo Encounters exhibition, curated by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli of 2050+, takes over Milan’s historic Chiostri di San Simpliciano. The show revisits the fashion house’s iconic bamboo motif, transformed through the lens of seven international artists and designers. Challenging traditional perceptions of bamboo, the exhibition explores its cultural, ecological, and emotional significance in a series of thought-provoking installations. Works by Nathalie Du Pasquier, Dima Srouji, and Anton Alvarez, among others, reimagine the material’s versatility, from Srouji’s delicate glass-bamboo fusion to Alvarez’s dynamic sculptural forms. 

image courtesy of Gucci

FABRIC AND LIGHT WITH A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE AND ATELIER OÏ

At Milan Design Week 2025, A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE and Swiss studio atelier oï showcase the TYPE-XIII Atelier Oï project. The exhibition at the ISSEY MIYAKE flagship store investigates how fabric and wire can turn into sculptural, glowing objects. Through collaboration, the designers push the limits of textile design, blending art and function. The main feature, the O Series lighting collection, includes portable lamps inspired by ikebana, allowing users to rearrange the lights and change the shadows. ‘A single piece of cloth can become anything,’ Yoshiyuki Miyamae shares with designboom, highlighting the endless possibilities fabric can offer. The O and A Series, based on A-POC’s sustainable design values, challenge the traditional use of textiles, turning them into flexible, functional lighting. This exhibition invites visitors to rethink fabric’s potential in a new, illuminated form.

image courtesy of ISSEY MIYAKE INC.

TOKUJIN YOSHIOKA’S SCULPTURAL ICE CHAIRS

For Milan Design Week 2025, renowned Japanese artist Tokujin Yoshioka unveils ‘Frozen,’ an installation displayed at the historic Palazzo Landriani in the Brera district. A series of chairs sculpted from frozen water compose the exhibit. At the center of the installation is the Aqua Chair, a translucent, luminous sculpture that evolves throughout the week. Crafted using a slow-freezing technique on ultra-transparent ice blocks, the chair transforms under the influence of light, wind, and temperature, embodying Yoshioka’s ongoing exploration of immateriality. By the event’s end, the chair will have melted into an organic composition, disappearing entirely, underscoring the fleeting beauty of water. Collaborating with Grand Seiko Europe, Yoshioka draws a parallel between his Sculptures of Light and the brand’s timepieces, linking the themes of light, natural rhythms, and the continuity of time. 

image courtesy of Grand Seiko and Tokujin Yoshioka