Why We Write This Guide
Every April, Milan stops being a city and becomes a living installation of exceptional design and brand installations.
We write this guide because there are now hundreds of events, and you can't be everywhere.
This is the guide we'd want to have ourselves. Curated by the NeueHaus community, members, curators, and people who've been showing up to Milan Design Week long enough to know what's worth a detour.
This is a living resource - we'll be continuously updating it as we get closer to the week. NeueHaus members can join our WhatsApp channel here to receive invites to previews and our events. Last updated: April 19, 2026
Join other NeueHaus members exploring Design Week, and discover Milan's creative scene together.
What Milan Design Week Actually Is (And How Not to Get Lost)
Before we go into our highlights, lets break down the essentials. Milan Design Week 2026 runs April 19-26 and is, functionally, two events sharing one city:
Salone del Mobile is the official international trade fair at Rho-Fieramilano - enormous, sector-specific, ticket-required. If you're in furniture, kitchens (EuroCucina), technology (FTK), bathrooms (Salone del Bagno), or you're a designer under 35 (SaloneSatellite), there's a reason to go. It's impressive. It's also a lot. Think airport-scale exhibition halls, industry buyers, and press everywhere.
Fuorisalone is where you'll find us. Fuori translates to "outside" - so everything that happens outside the fair. A decentralized, spontaneous, city-wide festival of independent events, most of them free, held in galleries, former industrial spaces, and historic palazzos. Fashion houses, tech giants, independent studios, and institutions all converge here. This is what we focus on, and it's what this guide is built around.
We are on the ground in Milan throughout the week and can't wait to see many of. Find our event calendar here.
OUR ESSENTIAL HIGHLIGHTS
Installations & Exhibitions
ALCOVA
20 - 26 April
People will definitely be talking about Alcova. Probably one of the most respected independent design platforms during Fuorisalone, known for showing interesting projects in contemporary design, architecture, and technology. And where the locations alone are always half the experience. This year, there are two of them.
Villa Pestarini Via Mogadiscio 2/4
A Franco Albini-designed rationalist villa never before open to the public. Highlights include a Patricia Urquiola installation for Haworth x Cassina, alongside exhibitors from Poland, Spain, Japan, Georgia, Greece and beyond.
Ospedale Militare di Baggio Via Giovanni Labus 10
The vast former military hospital brings a completely different scale. Home to the AA School of Architecture, Design Academy Eindhoven, HEAD Genève, and independent studios from across the world.
Tickets are required! Get yours here.
In the evenings, VOCLA takes over one of the hospital's industrial hangars for four nights - a club devoted to design, with a site-specific space designed by Ugo Cacciatori for Henge.
Villa Pestarini
ARTEMEST - L'Appartamento
20 – 26 April
Palazzo Donizetti
One of our annual favorites. Artemest invites five internationally recognized interior design studios - this year The Rockwell Group, Sasha Adler, Charlap Hyman & Herrero, March and White Design, and Urjowan Alsharif Interiors - to transform Palazzo Donizetti into a series of rooms showcasing exceptional furniture, lighting, and art from Italy's finest craftspeople.
DESIGNBOOM - Room for Dreams
20 - 26 April
Il Duca Hotel
Designboom, usually known as an online only magazine, is also entering Milan Design Week this year. They are taking over the public spaces of the Aldo Rossi-designed Il Duca Hotel, the multi-room activation spans installations, talks, screenings, and gatherings around one theme: dreaming as a tool for architectural and social transformation.
Free to attend - RSVP via designboom and bring your confirmation email.
The creative industry runs on relationships. Invest in the right ones and apply now to become a NeueHaus member.
INTERNI VENOSTA - Interno Italiano
20 – 25 April
Palazzo Olivazzi, Via Bigli 21
A private Milanese residence designed by Osvaldo Borsani, never before open to the public. Interni Venosta takes it over for the week with "Interno Italiano" — a dialogue between the building's postwar architecture and contemporary works. The building once housed Albert Einstein and his family, for what it's worth.
INTERNI VENOSTA - Interno Italiano
Gallery Experiences
While the big design brands always get most of the attention during MDW26, it is the galleries that surprise and captivate with avantgarde installations and shows.
Nilufar Depot, Milan.
NILUFAR
20 - 26 April
Nilufar is probably one of Milan's most influential collectible design galleries and with that MDWs biggest gallery happening. Founded by Nina Yashar in 1979 - known for mixing vintage masters with emerging contemporary voices. This year, two exhibitions across its two Milanese venues.
Nilufar Grand Hotel Nilufar Depot, Viale Lancetti 34
The Depot transforms into a fictional luxury hotel, each room curated as its own aesthetic world, bringing together distinctive voices from the contemporary and vintage worlds under Nina Yashar's curatorial vision.
La Casa Magica · Nilufar Spiga, Via della Spiga 32
Curated by Valentina Ciuffi (co-founder of Alcova) with creative direction by Studio Vedèt and set design by Space Caviar. The home as symbolic and ritual space - objects that reflect on belief, domestic archetypes, and re-enchantment.
Registration required for both - register here.
REDDUO GALLERIA
20 – 24 April
Porta Genova
This one is a bit more hidden. The multidisciplinary interior and design studio RedDuo, founded by Fabiola di Virgilio and Andrea Rosso, turns their very first Porta Genova space into a temporary gallery. Focusing on the merge of Italian craftsmanship and Japanese spatial references. By appointment only, so book in advance.
MOVIMENTO GALLERY - One, Two, Many
20 – 26 April
Via Giacosa 37
Movimento Gallery is exhibiting seven Italian and international designers around one shared material language. Each starts from the same point, adds at most one element, and takes it somewhere entirely their own.
Brand Installations and Events
6:AM OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER
19 – 26 April
Via Ampère 24, Porta Venezia
One of our favorites! 6:AM is a Milan-based glass brand with roots in Murano, founded in 2018, named after the hour artisans light the furnaces. This year's exhibition is built around a single idea: repetition as creative principle. Same gesture, never the same result.
The hero piece will be Batch - the blown glass cubes from the Bottega Veneta SS26 runway, shown in an exhibition context for the first time.
6:AM BAR PIENO
19 - 26 April
Parco Venezia (just outside the exhibition)
Right outside the exhibition, 6:AM takes over a beautiful 1960s pavilion in the park as a gathering spot for the international community around the brand. Bar Pieno runs all day, from breakfast through a long aperitivo, all curated by Vicino Wine Club. Each evening, young chefs from some of Italy's most remarkable emerging restaurants put their own take on a simple concept: Panini and Spritz. Very easy and social.
6:AM Centerpiece
CC-TAPIS × FORNASETTI
20 – 26 April
Piazza Santo Stefano 10
cc-tapis and Fornasetti are teaming up to reinterpret Fornasetti's archival motifs through textile craftsmanship. Worth seeing in person because those trompe-l'œil effects, hand-knotting, and embroidery don't leave the same impression on a screen.
cc-tapis × Fornasetti
DEORON
After last year's debut at MDW was quite a success, our friends at DEORON are coming back bigger this year. The platform, founded in 2021 by Alberto Pallaoro, is built around one idea: in a world flooded with mass production, good taste is a form of clarity.
The 2026 edition takes over an 800 sqm industrial space in Porta Venezia, never previously used for exhibitions, with a curated mix of established and emerging design brands, listening sessions, and a bar and outdoor area for when you need to slow down for a moment.
We're teaming up with DEORON for a conversation over breakfast with David Basulto, founder of ArchDaily, on "How to open doors in the design industry". Afterwards there will be a listening session to connect with other NeueHaus members and creatives before we head back into the bustling city.
SUPERSTUDIO DESIGN
20 – 26 April
Superstudio is one of the pillars of Fuorisalone, three venues, three distinct concepts, each with its own energy and audience.
SuperNova, Superstudio Più, Via Tortona 27 · Tortona District
The flagship venue in the heart of Tortona, where leading international design brands present large-scale installations and site-specific projects. This year's highlight: Moooi celebrating 25 years with a 1,000 sqm installation designed by Marcel Wanders.
SuperCity, Superstudio Maxi, Via Moncucco 35 · Barona
Curated by Giulio Cappellini, this venue transforms into an ideal neighbourhood of the future. Design, art, architecture, and photography coexist in a fluid, multi-sensory experience exploring the future of living and shared urban space.
SuperPlayground, Superstudio Village, Via Negrotto 59 · Bovisa
The newest venue and the one to watch. Entirely dedicated to emerging voices: 33 projects selected from over 200 applications across 30+ countries. Talks, workshops, installations, and performances - plus "Keep Your Bubble" by Lousy Auber, a soft architecture made from recycled hot air balloons.
SELETTI - Tools
21–26 April
Corso Garibaldi 117
Seletti transforms its flagship store into a vintage London-style hardware store for the launch of Tools - a new collection with Eternoo reimagining everyday hardware items (brooms, hammers, shovels) in gold finishes and neon handles. Very Seletti.
CASAORNELLA - Animale Sociale
20 - 26 April
Via Conca del Naviglio 10
Each year, designer Maria Vittoria Paggini transforms her Milanese showroom in the Cinque Vie district into something new - after Porno Chic and L'Appuntamento, this year's edition is Animale Sociale. More installation than exhibition: art, ceramics, lighting, fragrance, food, and fashion coexisting across the rooms of a space that feels genuinely lived-in.
Campagna Animale sociale at Casaornella.
MARNI × CUCCHI
19 April – 15 July
Pasticceria Cucchi, Corso Genova 1
Brand-hospitality collabs are having a moment - and this one we're genuinely looking forward to. Marni takes over one of Milan's most historic pasticcerie for the spring. Designed by RedDuo Studio, the collaboration translates both identities into a shared visual language: retro polka dots and stripes in red and green, running from the tableware to the staff uniforms.
Marni x Cucci
MIU MIU - Literary Club
17 – 18 April
Circolo Filologico Milanese, Via Clerici 10
This was the only event where you found us in queue last year - but worth the wait. Miu Miu's Literary Club is returning to Milan with a new round of exciting panelists, panel discussions, and live performances, this time centered around two landmark Italian titles by Sibilla Aleramo and Alba De Céspedes. RSVP via the Miu Miu website.
Miu Miu's Literary Club.
IKEA - Food for Thought
21 - 26 April
Spazio Maiocchi, Via Achille Maiocchi 7
Free and no registration needed. IKEA takes over Spazio Maiocchi with five room settings, each co-curated by a designer-chef duo. Live cooking demos, DJ sets, a food market, and an aperitivo bar in the evenings. More event than exhibition. Full schedule here.
JIL SANDER × APARTAMENTO - Reference Library
20 – 24 April
Jil Sander Showroom, Via Pietro Verri 6
Jil Sander and Apartamento doing something quieter than the usual MDW spectacle. They are exhibiting 60 books, each chosen by a different creative - architects, filmmakers, artists, writers - representing what shaped them
JIL SANDER × APARTAMENTO - Reference Library
HIGHSNOBIETY
Highsnobiety is also back at Milan Design Week. What we know so far: they'll be hosting something at Bar Basso on the 21st, and their Highsnobiety Kiosk will be running throughout the entire week. More details to follow.
There is more to come! Stay tuned.
