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Milan Design Week 2025: Architecture, Community, and the Mindset of Urban Renewal

Each April, Milan reawakens as the beating heart of global creativity, captivating architects, designers, and artists from around the world. More than just a product showcase, Milan Design Week unfolds as a sweeping, interdisciplinary conversation—where the lines between fashion, technology, art, and architecture blur, giving rise to experiences that are as unexpected as they are unforgettable.

While the official core of the event—Salone del Mobile at Fiera Milano Rho—is a massive trade fair, it is Fuorisalone that breathes life into the week. This vibrant network of satellite exhibitions takes over the city, transforming public spaces, abandoned factories, historic villas, and even train stations into hubs of imagination and innovation.

Prada Frames: Where Fashion Enters into Dialogue with Architecture

Prada Frames is a multidisciplinary research project initiated by Prada in 2022 under the academic direction of design studio Formafantasma —a critically acclaimed Italian-Dutch duo known for their reflective, sustainability-driven approach. More than an exhibition, Prada Frames is a platform for symposiums—gathering architects, researchers, anthropologists, and designers to discuss the intersection of environment, materials, society, and design.

Each year, Prada Frames explores a timely theme—ranging from ecology and infrastructure to the role of architecture in shaping communities—and situates it within an evocative public space in the heart of Milan.

“In Transit” – When the Train Station Becomes a Lens

For its 2025 edition, Prada selected Milano Centrale—Italy’s grandest railway terminal—as the evocative setting for Prada Frames, under the theme *In Transit*. Scholars, artists, and designers gathered in the Padiglione Reale—the station’s former royal lounge—and aboard the Arlecchino, a gracefully restored 1950s train designed by the legendary Gio Ponti.

Why a train station?

For Prada, a train station is more than just a point of departure or arrival—it is a powerful metaphor for movement, connection, and the ever-evolving rhythm of urban life. A space once built for transit is reimagined as a stage for design, where global visionaries and architects converge to explore infrastructure, reimagine urban planning, and reflect on the role of communities in shaping more sustainable ways of living.

'Frames: In Transit' was far from a conventional visual exhibition. It unfolded as an immersive sequence of dialogues, screenings, and installations—where concrete pillars, steel skeletons, stone, and brick were no longer merely structural, but transformed into vessels of social resonance and emotional memory.

When Materials Meet the Community

Within the grandeur of the terminal, architectural materials—the cool shimmer of granite floors, the weathered grace of concrete columns, and the soft glow of natural light filtering through Art Deco glass domes—appeared to converse quietly with the curated exhibits. These were not simply structural components, but narrators of an era—of collision, harmony, and reinvention.

In selecting a train station—a symbol of perpetual movement—to contemplate permanence, direction, and the principles of long-term design, Prada conveyed a profound message: that the community is not merely a passive recipient, but an active co-creator of architecture. At its essence, design transcends aesthetics; it is about shaping spaces imbued with meaning, purpose, and a deep connection to human experience.

Rediscovering the Spirit of Urban Space

For those of us working in building materials, architecture, and tile design, Prada’s exhibition offered a quiet yet compelling reminder: that every tile, every wall panel, every architectural surface is not just a structural component—but part of a larger story about cities, about people, and about the rhythms of change.

When a train station becomes a gallery, when architecture is not just to be seen but to be lived and felt—that is when materials find their soul.

Milan Design Week 2025 may have concluded, but the reflections on architecture, community, and urban transformation will echo long after. And sometimes, the answers we seek are not distant—they are right beneath our feet, embedded in the tiles that ground us.