Salone del Mobile: Satellite Show 2010

“The wise person is never surprised by the unexpected. The wise person expects the unexpected to occur as surely as the expected.” - Genghis Khan

My expectations for the Salone del Mobile are always high. It is the forefront of inspiring shows, successfully diversifying it content with its bonfire of progressive design venues: Zona Tortona, Zona Lambrate, Zona Fuori, and the Satellite exhibit. Salone del Mobile is my favorite design show, and I do my best to attend every year to fuel my inspirations. At times, I have even endured bright and sparkling design concepts from the show, because I know that something surprising waits around the corner. I also find the experience of visiting and attending the show with other designers while in Milan quite nice.

Despite the increase in attendees and volume of the exhibits, I found my normally highly regarded and memorable visit quite underwhelming. Bolstering my opinion, many other attendees also stated they were disappointed. There was one annex of the show, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed: Salone del Mobile’s Satellite show. After racing through the long boulevard of the Fiera, it was well worth dodging the mostly clueless crowds to arrive at the Satellite exhibition hall. The products were so inspiring, a concept that most design trade shows fail to include in their predictable layouts.

As it was larger than previous years, I was able to enjoy more of the fresh prototypes that were presented. The fearless designs quite often were sparked with a sense of humor, which entertained viewers. While the large corporate product design companies produced conservatively, the emerging independent designers did their best to produce unique prototypes during a quite challenging 2009. There were many refreshing innovations, rediscoveries, and reinterpretations that inspired me, so I hope you’ll find some inspiration in these snapshots from the Satellite exhibit.