Garage Milano: Italy’s design capital welcomes an impressive new art space

Opening its doors today during Salone del Mobile is Garage Milano, Milan’s newest gallery to feature design, art and antique furniture. Located in a towering, light-filled 1950s ex-industrial space, the gallery-shop debuts with an exhibition entitled ’Revival’, the brainchild of owner Alba Maria Pattori and co-curators Paola Gaggiotti and Nelsy Leidi.

With backgrounds in design and contemporary art, the team has lassoed 13 designers to present work ranging from spanking-new innovations to never produced prototypes. In between are examples of recycled materials, well designed products and the ideas that spawned them.

Of particular note are Philippe Bestenheider’s floating Styrofoam installation strung together with heavy-duty tape, Maurizio Navone’s latest wall-furniture concept for Restart and Nina Tolstrup’s ’Pallet Project’, an homage to Enzo Mari that features ’upcycled’ reconstituted-wood furniture that can be home-assembled with just a hammer and nails. Tying together the beautiful 1,500 sq m space is a floating, maze-like installation of blue tape by Studiopepe.

After Salone, Garage Milano will function as a multidisciplinary space. Goods (like the carpets Diego Grandi presented at the first Salone Satellite 15 years ago but never produced) will be sold and products will be crafted on site by woodworkers with their own dedicated falegname space. There will also be a schedule of child-friendly classes focusing on contemporary art.