Beirut stories in Milan
Lebanese architect Fadi Yachoui is bringing an immersive installation called “La Volupté” to Rossana Orlandi, weaving Lebanese craft, memory and resilience into a narrative piece — a compelling stop if you follow cultural storytelling in fashion and design. (thenationalnews.com)
A Beirut architect is using Milan Design Week to stage a room that works like a memory, not a showroom. Fadi Yachoui is presenting “La Volupté” at Rossana Orlandi’s gallery during the April 20 to 26, 2026 design week in Milan. (rossanaorlandi.com, thenationalnews.com) Yachoui is not arriving in Milan as a newcomer passing through for one fair. He lives between Beirut and Milan and launched Atelier L’inconnu at Milan Design Week’s 60th-anniversary edition with his “CACTI” collection. (theinvisiblecollection.com) His background explains why the project sits between furniture, architecture and storytelling. He studied at the Lebanese American University and the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture in Paris, then worked in Beirut and Milan before taking a master’s degree in industrial design at Scuola Politecnica di Design. (theinvisiblecollection.com) The object at the center of this new installation starts as a seat, but Yachoui describes it more like a body-shaped sculpture. On his studio site, “La Volupté” is presented as a woven piece with flowing curves modeled on the female silhouette. (atelierlinconnu.com) The material matters as much as the shape. Yachoui says the piece is built around Lebanese wicker weaving, a craft tradition he describes as deeply rooted in the region and increasingly at risk of fading away. (atelierlinconnu.com) That focus on memory is not new in his work. In Beirut, his studio recently showed pieces in “Totems of the Present & the Absent” at Villa Audi, where the exhibition text spoke in blunt terms about grief, collapse, rebirth and what remains unsaid. (atelierlinconnu.com) Rossana Orlandi is also not a random stop on the Milan circuit. Her gallery at Via Matteo Bandello 14 is one of the city’s best-known design addresses, and its 2026 program lists RoCollectible running from April 20 to 26. (rossanaorlandi.com) Put those pieces together and the Milan installation reads less like a product launch than a Beirut story translated into design language. A Lebanese architect trained across Beirut, Paris and Milan is using a hand-woven seat to carry craft, loss and endurance into one of the world’s busiest design weeks. (theinvisiblecollection.com, atelierlinconnu.com, thenationalnews.com)
