Milan: off‑map venues shine
Coverage of Milan Design Week is pointing people away from a single trade show and toward exploration — critics are flagging six new Fuorisalone venues this year, including a historic private residence, an abandoned swimming pool and a bonsai museum for off‑map discovery. (livingetc.com) (wallpaper.com)
Milan Design Week coverage is steering visitors beyond the fairgrounds and toward six first-time Fuorisalone stops scattered across Milan and its outskirts. (wallpaper.com) Fuorisalone runs across the city from April 20 to 26, while the 64th Salone del Mobile.Milano opens at Rho Fiera from April 21 to 26. The official Fuorisalone platform lists 846 events for the 2026 edition. (fuorisalone.it) (salonemilano.it) Wallpaper’s six new venues are Villa Pestarini, Casa Rossa, Palazzo Acerbi, Piscina Romano, Palazzo Olivazzi Crespi and the Crespi Bonsai Museum. The magazine said all six are joining the Fuorisalone circuit for the first time this year. (wallpaper.com) That citywide sprawl is the point of Fuorisalone. Interni describes it as the part of Milan Design Week that happens in courtyards, converted factories, galleries, shops and streets rather than inside the trade fair at Rho. (internimagazine.it) The mix of venues also shows how Milan Design Week keeps turning architecture itself into the exhibit. Fuorisalone’s own editorial guide this month highlighted first-time openings in private homes, historic villas, palaces and reused civic spaces as defining locations for 2026. (fuorisalone.it) Villa Pestarini is one of the clearest examples. Fuorisalone and Wallpaper both say the 1930s Franco Albini residence, near Piazza Tripoli, is opening to the public for the first time as one of Alcova’s 2026 sites. (fuorisalone.it) (wallpaper.com) Piscina Romano pushes the same idea in a different direction. Fuorisalone says the 1929 pool complex, designed by Luigi Lorenzo Secchi, will host 6:AM’s glass exhibition inside a site that still carries its original changing rooms, ticket office and Liberty-style architecture. (fuorisalone.it) The Crespi Bonsai Museum takes visitors outside central Milan. The museum in Parabiago says it opened in 1991 as the world’s first permanent bonsai museum and rotates about 200 works from a collection billed as the largest and most comprehensive outside Japan. (crespibonsai.com) Other newly foregrounded addresses tie brands to historic settings. Fuorisalone says H&M HOME is using Palazzo Acerbi on Corso di Porta Romana for a Kelly Wearstler collaboration, while Kaldewei says it is staging “Bubbles of Time” at Palazzo Crespi from April 20 to 26. (fuorisalone.it) (kaldewei.com) The result is a Milan itinerary that looks less like one destination than a hunt. In 2026, the week’s most talked-about rooms include a private Rationalist house, a 1929 swimming pool and a bonsai museum beyond the city center. (wallpaper.com)
