Toosa 40/Toosa 65 by Artemide

And so yet again, the annual Salone whirlwind has blown across the streets of Milan.

In the midst of this design frenzy, you find yourself walking through kilometres of stands, sitting down and getting up again, running your hands across surfaces that are sometimes rough, and at other times soft; you absorb the smells and sounds like a sponge to water.

The sound of the crowd is deafening, thousands of people walk next to you, across you, like a wave on a stormy sea.

Is this the Salone?

Yes–today, like yesterday, people gather beneath the new Toosa by Artemide lamp because apparently, light will be the future of design. Why was it not so until now?

I lose myself in the Salone’s world of design, which has transformed itself into an immense hall in which the furniture disappears beneath the countless of bobbing heads.

To define this as the international fair of furniture appears almost an insult, for a chair is no longer simply a chair but rather a series of adjectives which represent a tangle of wires upon which you may sit upon.

What has happened to the bookshelves? They have escaped, disappeared before an array of cubes which, when tied together, hold books and magazines, but which can also simply fill an empty wall. This is the new design, art in the true sense of the word.

At the Fuorisalone, like at Pamplona’s infamous San Firmino feast, I find myself running–not from the bulls, but from the tourists who crowd the streets of design. It is whilst I am running that I bump into the installation by Martin Margiela, a reproduction of the eclectic Belgian designer’s Parisian studio which showcases his upcoming collection for the home. As I explore this intriguing space, I try to open a door in the hopes that I will discover a hidden delight yet undiscovered by the crowds,but I simply find a wall.  

Moving like a spinning top, I pull aside a brocade curtain and find myself in a bathroom–what has been defined as contemporary man’s new space of relaxation. I lie upon a water mattress which massages the body in a naturally relaxing manner, and admire a round tub made from Japanese wood designed to reflect the elements of feng shui.

Feeling exhausted, I sit down.

I realize, after a minute’s loss, that I am staring blankly at a television monitor and–even more disconcerting–that I’m sitting on a toilet! Is this the future? To be seated in what, according to the design experts, is becoming the most important element of our relationship with our home (the toilet), watching television?

Disconcerted, I glide off of the teak floor only to bump into a roll of black toilet paper. Amidst all of this infinite black bathroom design, even the ordinary white paper roll finds no place here.

Text © Diego Moriondo