What to See at Brera Design Week: Our 11 Picks
From light installations to material explorations, from craft to tech, here’s what we’re most looking forward to
Milan Design Week, featuring the Salone del Mobile furniture fair and around 1,000 Fuorisalone events, is scheduled for 21–26 April 2026. Despite global uncertainties, the world’s largest design event remains the place to be for anyone passionate about design and creativity. Among the countless events on the calendar, Brera Design District promises to gather some of the week’s most anticipated initiatives.
This is the 17th edition of Brera Design Week, featuring 217 permanent showrooms, 89 temporary exhibitors, nine new openings, and over 300 events in total. Visitors will engage with the theme ”Be the Project,” which invites consideration of design not merely as a formal result or finished product, but as a cultural process and responsibility in building relationships between people, places and communities.
Studiolabo coordinates the activities of Brera Design Week, as it has since it began. We asked co-founder and creative director Paolo Casati why Brera remains so central to Milan’s design landscape and why it continues to grow year after year. ”The district continues to grow as a destination,” Casati explains, ”extending beyond Design Week and consolidating itself as the place to be where companies want to maintain a continuous presence, establishing a direct relationship with the international design community that flows through Milan.”
Brera represents a unique blend of business and cultural significance: ”Brera is to design what the Quadrilatero, particularly via Montenapoleone, is to fashion: an essential address for those seeking international positioning, especially in emerging markets. There is no other place in the world today with such concentration and quality of design brands. Brera is a brand, a destination, but above all a project rooted in local identity that has always embodied Milan’s cultural soul. It is a neighborhood that played a central role in the city’s artistic history and has managed to preserve its DNA over time.”
As a year-round design hub, Brera undoubtedly reaches its peak during Design Week.
Here are some of the events we are most looking forward to this year:
1. ”Y.O.U. Your Own Universe” by Numero Cromatico for Glo For Art
Numero Cromatico is a Rome-based artistic collective known internationally for its work on science, perception and pioneering use of AI in its practice. In this installation for Glo, visitors encounter an orange circle that breathes—a threshold where light stutters across surfaces, colors drift, and sound plays an essential role. All senses are engaged, alongside AI, as the environment shifts and transforms with each visitor’s presence.
Via della Moscova, 18, 20121 Milano
2. ”When Apricots Blossom” by Uzbekistan Art Culture Development Foundation
Craft plays a central role in this year’s Milan Design Week, offering a global perspective. The Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) emerges as a key presence, presenting an immersive exhibition at the historic Palazzo Citterio in Brera. The exhibition explores Uzbek craftsmanship, culture, and the ecology of the Aral Sea region. Conceived and promoted by Gayane Umerova, President of ACDF, and curated by architect Kulapat Yantrasast, the show features new works by twelve international designers, including Bethan Laura Wood, Fernando Laposse, Glithero Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Studio CoPain, and Raw-Edges.
Palazzo Citterio, Via Brera, 14, 20121 Milano
3. “Arts & Crafts & Design”
Within the broader horizon of craft, the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte and the Michelangelo Foundation are known worldwide for initiatives such as Homo Faber, the biennial of artistic craftsmanship that will take place in Venice in a few months. They will also be present in Milan with ”Arts & Crafts & Design,” a new collaborative showcase bringing together Serapian and Creative Academy. The event comprises four exhibitions: Doppia Firma, Homo Faber Fellowship, The Secrets of Mestieri d’Arte, and Treasure Island, providing an ideal vantage point from which to observe how manual craftsmanship has become increasingly central to contemporary design practice.
Casa degli Artisti, Corso Garibaldi, 89/A, 20121 Milano
4. ”Chasing the Sun”, by Yinka Ilori for Veuve Clicquot
”Chasing the Sun” explores the relationship between light, color, and movement. Artist and designer Yinka Ilori structures the space through an investigation of joy as a visual and sensory element: surfaces capturing sunlight and color palettes shiftingwith natural light’s intensity. The project unfolds across multiple spaces where visitors experience how the environment transforms throughout the day. The installation also offers limited-edition objects designed by Yinka Ilori in collaboration with Veuve Clicquot.
Mediateca Santa Teresa, Via della Moscova, 28, 20121 Milano
5. “ArchiThoughts–ArchiTouch” by Arpa
”ArchiThoughts–ArchiTouch” is the third chapter in an investigation of the relationships between architectural thinking and material perception. Six international studios—Marion Mailander, Parasite 2.0, RedDuo Studio, Storage Milano, Studio GGSV, and Zimmer—have been brought together by curator Federica Sala in an installation designed by (AB)NORMAL. The exhibition explores how surfaces, materials and their tactile properties inform the design process. Each intervention interrogates the relationship between idea and matter, between theory and the sensory experience of space, employing materials from Arpa, Fenix, Formica, Homapal and Getacore.
Fenix Scenario, Via Quintino Sella, 1, 20121 Milano
6. ”Mimesis” by Dilmos
Anyone who knows Brera knows that a visit to Dilmos cannot be missed. This year’s exhibition, ”Mimesis,” brings together two featured designers: Onno Adriaanse, a Dutch designer based in Eindhoven, and Valeria Vaccaro, an Italian artist working in Turin. The show investigates how natural elements translate into functional design while preserving qualities of uniqueness, rarity, and pronounced artistic sensibility.
Dilmos, Via S. Marco, 1, 20121 Milano
7. ”NODI. Cultura, impresa e design del legno trentino” by Fiemme Tremila
Design from the Alps is gaining traction among design enthusiasts. ”Nodi” by Fiemme Tremila offers a compelling entry point. The exhibition presents the results of a year-long collaboration between designers and companies from the Trentino region, all working exclusively with local wood. Rather than pursuing purely artistic expression, these pieces prioritize functionality and directness—design that respects the material and its context. Designers involved include Raffaella Mangiarotti, Lorenzo Palmeri, Matteo Ragni, Lorenzo Damiani, Giulio Iacchetti, and JoeVelluto, among others.
Fiemme Store, Via Giovanni Lanza, 4, 20121 Milano
8. “The Factory of Light” by Aesop
Returning to the Design Week for the third consecutive year, Aesop presents an installation exploring architecture, light, and craft. The project proposes an alternative world—one in which light is restrained, becoming a means of conveying serenity. Ten thousand fragrance bottles create moving reflections across carved wooden panels, while custom-designed lamps contribute to a carefully calibrated luminous environment. The installation unfolds within the sacristy of an actual church, where the architectural context amplifies the project’s exploration of contemplation.
Chiesa del Carmine, Piazza del Carmine, 2, 20121 Milano
9. “Tell Me – Emersivi” by Orografie
From a church to a confessional, Orografie‘s ninth edition of Emersivi invites designers under 35 to a peculiar form of mentorship. “Tell Me” transforms a church confessional into a space where emerging designers meet with nine senior Orografie practitioners—with a twist. Young participants register and select their encounter time without knowing who will be on the other side. No names. No preparation. Just conversation. Registration is necessary at the official event page.
Sagrato della Chiesa di Santa Maria Incoronata, Corso Garibaldi, 116, 20121 Milano
10. ”Pulse Pack, Heart-Sync Bag” by Konel Inc.
Konel Inc., a creative studio operating between Japan, New York, and Milan, presents Pulse Pack—a wearable bag that establishes a physical connection to one’s own heartbeat. The device detects the user’s pulse and mirrors it at half frequency, generating an internal rhythm that interrupts external stimulation. The project explores how design can facilitate self-awareness through physical sensation, proposing a new form of bodily attunement. Visitors will experiment a new form of digital stimulation, a way to focus and transform a functional object into a tool for emotional recalibration.
Via Palermo, 11, 20121 Milano MI
11. ”Teatro della Vita” by Nathalie Du Pasquier e George Sowden for Kerakoll
Nathalie Du Pasquier and George Sowden have long shaped contemporary design through their distinctive approach to color and form. For the 2026 Design Week, they transform Kerakoll’s Brera showroom into ”Teatro della Vita” (The Theatre of LIfe), a stage of abstract urban compositions where color and geometry converge. The installation creates a spatial dialogue between vibrant hues and geometric patterns, establishing moments of calm and visual richness within the intensity of the week. Rather than a static backdrop, the space functions as an active environment where color and form work together, offering an interlude of contemplation amid the constant flux of the Design Week.
Kerakoll Brera Studio , Via Solferino, 16, 20121 Milano
What are your thoughts?