Six new Fuorisalone spots

Fuorisalone’s map is widening again for Milan Design Week 2026, with six first-time venues opening to the public across the city from April 20 to 26. (wallpaper.com) Wallpaper’s list names Villa Pestarini, Casa Rossa, Palazzo Acerbi, Piscina Romano, Palazzo Olivazzi Crespi and the Bonsai Museum as this year’s new stops. The magazine says each space is being used for Fuorisalone for the first time. (wallpaper.com) The timing matters because Fuorisalone runs alongside the citywide design program from April 20 to 26, while the 64th Salone del Mobile fair opens at Fiera Milano Rho from April 21 to 26. Salone says the fair will host more than 1,900 exhibitors across more than 169,000 square meters. (fuorisalone.it) (salonemilano.it) That split is central to how Milan Design Week works: Salone is the trade fair in Rho, and Fuorisalone is the network of exhibitions, installations and brand events spread through neighborhoods and private buildings across Milan. Fuorisalone’s official preview describes the week as a citywide program of events and installations. (salonemilano.it) (fuorisalone.it) Villa Pestarini is one of the clearest examples of that shift. Wallpaper says the Modernist house, designed by Franco Albini and completed in 1939, has remained a private family home until Alcova secured it as one of its 2026 locations. (wallpaper.com) Alcova had already signaled that move months earlier when it announced its 2026 sites, listing Villa Pestarini and the nearby Baggio military hospital for April 20 to 26. The platform has built its reputation on placing emerging design inside unusual architecture rather than conventional fair stands. (wallpaper.com) Other additions show brands and organizers pushing into spaces that carry their own story before any object is installed. Wallpaper’s roundup stretches from a public swimming complex, Piscina Romano, to Palazzo Acerbi, a Baroque residence, to a Bonsai Museum that brings a specialist collection into the design-week circuit. (wallpaper.com) Palazzo Acerbi is already drawing brand activity beyond the venue list itself. Wallpaper reported last week that Kelly Wearstler’s first furniture collection for H&M Home will debut there during Milan Design Week in rooms staged around “daily rituals.” (wallpaper.com) Fuorisalone’s 2026 theme, “Be the Project,” frames the week around design as a process of experiments, mistakes and revisions rather than a finished showroom reveal. The official preview says the theme puts people back at the center of design as “an interpreter of change.” (fuorisalone.it) In practice, that means the city itself becomes part of the exhibition. This year’s first-time venues turn private homes, historic palazzi, civic infrastructure and niche museums into destinations, giving visitors more reasons to leave the fairgrounds and read Milan through its interiors. (wallpaper.com) (comune.milano.it)