Milan in Perspective 2013: Design Duality

A report by Mariel Brown and Chloe Amos-Edkins, Seymourpowell Both inspirational and overwhelming, the annual design fair in Milan is the largest show of its kind in the world, and as such has been recognised for decades as the centre of the emerging design universe. In this, its 52nd edition, the overarching theme that struck us, as we reflected on the show’s highlights, was that of duality. We are currently moving through an age of great contradiction; where the nightmare of political, environmental and financial instability coincides with the fantastical dream of rapidly advancing technology. As students, designers and manufacturers attempt to navigate their way through this chaos, a dichotomy of design responses werebubbling up at the fair. These reflect the complexity of our current situation, and the contradictory nature of the human condition. Seymourpowell has highlighted this duality by arranging eight key trends from the fair into four contradictory pairs.