Design show Alcova announces 2025 locations in Milan

Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, which played host to Alcova 2024, will feature again, but this time alongside its ancient greenhouses

(Image credit: Piergiorgio Sorgetti)

The roving design exhibition Alcova has announced its locations for its 2025 Milan edition. Running concurrent to Milan Design Week 2025 from 8-13 April, the design fair will expand its footprint with two new locations in the northern suburb of Varedo. Villa Bagatti Valsecchi and Villa Borsani, the historic private homes that hosted Alcova 2024, will also remain as venues.

'In 2025 we will return to Varedo, but not simply by revisiting familiar spaces,' said Joseph Grima, Alcova’s co-founder alongside curator Valentina Ciuffi, at an event announcing the new locations. 'This year, we will widen our gaze. We thought we had seen all the surprising, unexpected beauty of this part of Milan, but we discovered this is not the end. There are two other sites we have passed dozens of times going to and from Villa Bagatti Valsecchi and Villa Borsani, which have wonderful charm and are completely different from the spaces we have already occupied.'

The former SNIA factory, located adjacent to the Varedo train station, will play host to Alcova’s expansion. ‘It’s one of the most avant-garde factories of the beginning of the last century,' continued Grima, describing the long-abandoned industrial facility. 'It was a great innovator in synthetic fabrics, but above all an extraordinary piece of architecture from the Rationalist period.'

The second new Milan location will be the Pasino glasshouses, a series of ancient greenhouses on the grounds of Villa Bagatti Valsecchi that once nurtured Europe’s largest collection of white orchids. 'These greenhouses have been dormant for decades now,' said Grima, 'but they have a magical quality of light that immediately made us realise that we had to find a way to activate them.'

Inside Villa Borsani, an existing Alcova location that will feature again in 2025

Prior to Milan Design Week 2025, Alcova will stage an edition during Miami Art Week (having made its Miami debut in 2023), which will take place in the River Inn in the city’s South River Drive Historic District, from 3-8 December 2024.

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Laura May Todd, Wallpaper's Milan Editor, based in the city, is a Canadian-born journalist covering design, architecture and style. She regularly contributes to a range of international publications, including T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Azure and Sight Unseen, and is about to publish a book on Italian interiors.