For its tenth anniversary, Nilufar Depot is exploring the allure of live-action making with an in-situ intervention by Martino Gamper.
It is part of a wider trend that has seen the nature of the design exhibition evolve in recent years. No longer are brands and galleries satisfied with staid presentations of furniture and objects, no matter how artfully they’ve been set-designed or styled. Instead, these institutions are turning to performance to inject energy and draw crowds.
There was Formafantasma’s ‘Staging Modernity’ for Cassina, among a number of performance-focused shows during 2025’s Milan Design Week, in which actors sang and danced an original musical around a reissued set of Charlotte Perriand pieces. Just last week, Delvis presented its latest exhibition with a meditative performance by the artist Jirah.
Martino Gamper for Nilufar Depot's tenth anniversary
Nilufar Depot in 2015, with the Gamper-Ponti round tables visible on the red rug
For the presentation, Gamper set up shop in the central atrium of Nilufar Depot – a three-storey former silverware factory on Milan’s Via Lancetti –with his workshop tools in tow. Similar to his Gamper-Ponti project from 2007 – in which he deconstructed and remixed a bedroom set from the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento by Gio Ponti into a new collection of collaged tables, lights, mirrors and chairs – visitors watched as Gamper broke down and rebuilt a wooden bed by Franco Albini and a carved wooden chair with a bright purple velvet seat by Luigi Caccia Dominioni.
Throughout the day, the typically hushed gallery atmosphere was disrupted with the sounds of whirring saws and the occasional burst of sawdust in the light-filled air. Working with offcut plywood veneers from Alpi, Gamper added small platforms on each side of the chair 'to rest a drink on', he says. On the bed, he created a mosaic-like effect by inserting a colourful veneered plywood board within the solid wooden frame. 'I’m cutting things away and revealing details,' he says.
This year marks over 18 years of collaboration between Gamper and Nilufar; a rare feat in designer-gallerist partnerships. 'I remember 12 years ago telling Nina she should open up one of her warehouses,' Gamper recalled during a pause between cuts. 'Fast-forward over a decade, and Nina called me and said she had a few pieces in storage that needed some love – pieces that are not masterpieces but have some heritage.' Beyond the impromptu stage, a procession of Gamper’s ‘Off Cut Tables’ snaked around the atrium’s perimeter and between its industrial columns.
Book: celebrating ten years of Nilufar Depot
Nina Yashar
To coincide with the anniversary, Nilufar is publishing Nilufar Depot: The First Decade, a retrospective volume featuring previously unseen installation images and essays by journalist Annamaria Sbisà – a keepsake substitute for those who missed the sawdust and spectacle in person.
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