Salone del Mobile 2026: Three Formats, One Conviction
The Salone del Mobile is the largest stage in the international design world. Yet as in theatre, it is the places behind the scenes that offer the most revealing insights: the side streets, showrooms and palazzi of the city. That is precisely where the German Design Council Foundation was present with its community this year, across three formats that could hardly be more different, yet share the same conviction: design thinks, acts and connects.
Foundation Tour Brera: Five Stops, Five Perspectives
On 22 April, around 20 foundation members joined a curated tour of selected showrooms in the Brera district — with direct access to and open dialogue with the people responsible for design at each brand. Five stops, five perspectives on the questions that design is grappling with today.
COR managing director Leo Lübke made clearwhere circular design is really decided: not at the point of return at the end of a product's life, but in the design process itself. Whether a piece of furniture can hold its own on the secondary market is determined long before the first sale. A conviction that shows how seriously circular thinking must be understood as a design challenge.
At Walter Knoll, CEO Markus Benz posed a question fundamental enough to accompany every design process: craft or technology? There is no simple answer, but it is the right question to spark a debate that stayed with the group long after the visit.
Wilkhahn showed with the WiChair just how much a single object can say. Managing director Götz Stamm presented the steel chair deliberately in its unfinished state, with visible traces of production – the manufacturing process as part of the design itself, technically precise and of artistic quality in equal measure.
Gessi country manager Alexander Wolf offered a glimpse into a brand world in which the bathroom has long since ceased to be a purely functional space. At Gessi, bathing culture becomes a sensory experience, shaped with consistency from the product through to the atmosphere of the room.
The tour concluded at Bang & Olufsen: design, acoustics, experience and C2C certification. A conversation that demonstrated how far design responsibility now extends, and how sustainability functions as an integral part of a product philosophy: not as a promise, but as a given.
Kaldewei at Palazzo Crespi: The Bathroom as a Place in Time
On the evening before the tour, foundation member Kaldewei opened the doors of the Palazzo Crespi. In collaboration with Milan-based design studio Parasite 2.0, the installation "Bubbles of Time" transformed the historic building into an immersive exhibition space, one that understands the bathroom as an architectural and cultural site, tracing a line from Portaluppi's visionary bathroom designs to the present day.
“Anyone who wants to see products goes online these days. What matters far more is the experience and the story that a presentation tells.”
Luca Marullo Viola (Founder, Parasite 2.0)
At the panel talk held in partnership with the ICONIC AWARDS, Parasite 2.0 co-founder Luca Marullo Viola summed up the curatorial approach: "Anyone who wants to see products goes online these days. What matters far more is the experience and the story that a presentation tells." Designer Werner Aisslinger described Portaluppi's bathroom designs as "inspiring", his floor plans as "extremely forward-thinking", and his handling of light and surfaces as "simply masterful." Kaldewei itself regards its products as enduring architectural elements, conceived for long service lives rather than short renewal cycles, a conviction that could hardly have found a more fitting backdrop than Portaluppi's timeless work."
Read the full feature on the installation in our online magazine Design Perspectives: Bubbles of Time: Bathroom Architecture Through the Ages
Liebherr: When Light Turns a Refrigerator Into a Design Challenge
At the Liebherr VIP event – held exclusively for the community of the German Design Council and the ICONIC AWARDS – product designer Jan Ctvrtnik gave keynote talk offering rare insight into the design process behind modern premium refrigeration. "Light structures the interior of the refrigerator and creates atmosphere," he explained and meant considerably more than aesthetics alone. Liebherr develops lighting systems that do not dazzle tired eyes in the dark, internal light walls that organise the interior, and ambient lighting on the exterior handles. The larger the appliances become, the more central the question of how light creates both orientation and a sense of space.
The broader design philosophy was articulated by Maria Mack, Head of Global Communication & Brand Management: "Our design strategy is timelessness. The user should feel at ease and experience every function as a matter of course."
Three Formats, One Conviction
Three events, one conviction. What unites these three formats is more than a shared location: it is the belief that good design is never accidental, but the result of clear values, strategic thinking and a willingness to ask the right questions.
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