What I Brought Back from Milan Design Week 2024
I went to Salone del Mobile last April with specific intentions; sourcing leads, new vendor relationships, a look at what the European market is doing with materials and lighting that hasn't made it to the US yet. I came back with all of that, plus a few things I didn't expect.
A year out, here’s what’s still inspiring.
The city itself
Milan during Design Week is one of those experiences that's hard to describe without sounding like you're overselling it. The entire city becomes a design exhibition; showrooms, courtyards, historic buildings, cafés. Brera, Tortona, Isola. Every neighborhood has something happening. It's chaotic in the best way, and the density of ideas per square mile is unlike anything I encounter in a normal working year.
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is worth an hour even if you have no design agenda. The proportion of that space, the quality of the light through the glass ceiling, the way the mosaic floors hold up after 150 years, it's a lesson in what it means to build something that improves with age rather than deteriorating from it. I think about that a lot when I'm specifying materials for projects.
Throughout Milan Design Week, designers and global brands create striking public art installations that celebrate creativity and design.
Salone proper: what the fairgrounds showed me
Salone del Mobile Milano 2024
The level of craft on display at Fiera Milano is extraordinary. Not just in the design of individual pieces, but in how brands think about presenting them; the storytelling behind a chair, the spatial decisions in a booth, the way materiality is communicated through touch and proximity rather than just sight.
What struck me most was how intentional the best exhibitors are about how things age. Not just how they look on day one, but how they'll look in fifteen years. The brands that have been doing this for generations design for time in a way that most American furniture manufacturers don't. It's a different philosophy and it produces different results.
Villa Necchi and the Gaggenau installation
The Gaggenau exhibition was held inside Villa Necchi Campiglio, a 1930s Rationalist residence designed by Piero Portaluppi, with a private garden, tennis court, and one of Milan's earliest private swimming pools. Getting to spend time inside a building of that quality is part of what makes Design Week worth the trip.
Gaggenau’s Elevation of Gravity
The installation itself: an induction cooktop integrated seamlessly into a stone countertop, disappearing into the surface so that only the knobs are visible. The point was to show how technology can serve architecture rather than compete with it, the appliance becomes part of the material plane rather than an object sitting on top of it.
I think about this constantly in kitchen design. The cooktop that dominates a countertop, the hood that announces itself from across the room, the refrigerator that reads as a refrigerator; versus the kitchen where the appliances are present and functional but the architecture and material choices are what you actually notice. Villa Necchi, and Gaggenau's use of it, was a good argument for the latter.
Gaggenau Induction Cooktop
At first glance, the cooktop disappears into the stone surface, leaving only the sleek knobs visible. And with every induction, even if it’s on, touching the surface won’t burn you.
Inside Villa Necchi
Villa Necchi Campiglio is a historic residence located at via Mozart, 14, Milan. It was built between 1932 and 1935 as an independent single-family house designed by Piero Portaluppi, an important Milanese Rationalist architect, and is surrounded by a large private garden with a tennis court and swimming pool.
Villa Necchi’s swimming pool was one of Milan’s earliest private pools, a true symbol of luxury design.
The library inside Villa Necchi
The craftsmanship inside Villa Necchi’s library is extraordinary. The built-in room dividers blend beauty and function, a perfect reminder that storage can be both practical and artfully designed.
Bocci
Bocci's exhibition "Unexpected Guests" featured commissioned works by Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi, glass objects exploring the relationship between natural and artificial elements, styled to convert a domestic interior into something cinematic. The villa setting, with its forest-green shag carpet stairwell wall and mirrored ceiling, shouldn't have worked. It did.
Bocci 14P | Portable light
They also launched the 14P, a portable, rechargeable version of their iconic 14 Series pendant. Cast glass, fully wireless, three dimming levels. The 14 Series has been one of the most compelling lighting designs of the past twenty years and the portable version extends that without diluting it.
I've specified Bocci lighting on projects where the client wants something sculptural that rewards looking at it from different distances and angles. The 14P adds the possibility of doing that without a fixed electrical location, which opens up a different set of design conversations.
Bocci Milan Villa
The Bocci Villa in Milan showcases light fixtures installed against a forest-green shag carpet wall and a mirrored ceiling, a bold combination that sparks inspiration for the unexpected use of materials.
THG Paris
The Denver rep for THG Paris arranged an invitation to their showroom opening breakfast before shuttling us to Salone, which is exactly the kind of vendor relationship that makes going worth it. THG is a high-end plumbing line with a level of customization most of their competitors don't offer, including partnerships with Baccarat and Lalique for hand-blown glass handle options.
THG Paris Milan Showroom
The showroom was exactly what you'd expect from a brand that takes hardware this seriously, considered, refined, nothing generic. For clients who care about the quality of the things they touch every day in a bathroom or kitchen, THG is worth knowing about. The handle you reach for every morning is not a neutral design decision.
THG Paris Plumbing handle options
THG Paris features customizable plumbing handles, including artisan glass collaborations with Baccarat and Lalique; the kind of refined, thoughtful details I love.
This part of the experience reminded me that design isn’t just something we do indoors. It’s cultural. It’s everywhere.
It’s in the details.
It reconnected me to the why behind Jamie House Design, to create interiors that elevate my client’s daily lives.
BMW Future of Joy
BMW’s “Future of Joy” installation blended design, innovation, and sensory experience. A stunning way to bring your brand aesthetic into a presentation.
Ralph Lauren | Milan Design Week
Ralph Lauren’s Milan showroom and restaurant exterior was transformed with cascading magnolia blooms; a perfect reminder that scale can change the entire feeling of a design. The large scale makes it modern and bold, if it was life-size it’d look sweet and pretty. Both fine, but one is memorable and makes a brand connection.
What I brought back
The sourcing leads and vendor relationships are the practical output of a trip like this. But the less quantifiable thing I always bring back from Milan is a recalibrated sense of standard. Spending several days surrounded by work at that level, the craft, the material thinking, the long view, the lifestyle creation, makes it easier to hold the line on quality decisions when I'm back in Centennial and someone is asking whether the less expensive option is good enough.
It usually isn't. And spending time around the best version of things is the most reliable way I know to keep that instinct sharp.
“Walking through Milan during Design Week reminded me that the most impactful designs are the ones that slow you down, make you feel something, and invite you to stay awhile.”
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