bold chair by big-game for malo. felt-covered.
Let’s start with the premise that design is off to a good start in 2011. The Guardian reports the Milan Furniture Fair, in its 50th year has 2,700 companies exhibiting although attendance might not reach that of record year 2008. An interesting sidenote is this “furniture fair” has inspired the city to host hundreds of related events in showrooms, fashion stores, galleries and vacant warehouses. The fringe events are so numerous now that they take over entire districts.
no evidence this year to date of similar sentiments sketched out in 2010.

Design’s good start in 2011 might have been predicted based on what happened in Miami Basel & Design/Miami in December 2010. Last year for the first time, Design/Miami built a pavilion right across the street from the main draw, the art show, rather than their historic venue in the Miami Design District. And just like Milan, a similar pattern of creative multi-disciplined fringe events popped-up outside of South Beach and spread throughout the Design District and elsewhere. The Art Basel attendance was down but not so for Design/Miami ( in essence, this year a furniture show ) which experienced a best in their ten-year run.

Another thought, The Guardian, if they chose their words carefully, says design plays an important role in urban economies. Here we assume furniture and urban are co-dependent. What about the non-urban economies? Maybe the 2011 International Home & Housewares Show in Chicago in March, which is not urban-centric, gives hints to this question. This year for the first time the show introduces Discover Design, a juried event, with design awards for design-driven home products. This year’s houseware’s show was a very good show.

Below, a few 2011 offerings…

[ milan 2011 furniture fair hosts record numbers ] [ 2011 housewares discover design product winners ]