Exhibition KCDF @ MILANO 2024 · Venue Rossana Orlandi Gallery, Via Matteo Bandello 14, Milan · Dates 14–21 April 2024 · Scope Three rooms and the garden · Sector Craft, design and cultural exhibitions
Not a trade show stand
This is the one project in our record that is not an exhibition stand at all. It is a curated craft exhibition inside a gallery, built during Milan Design Week for the Korea Craft & Design Foundation.
The venue is Rossana Orlandi — a former tie factory off Via Bandello that has become the single most visited address of the Fuorisalone. Getting a show into that building is hard. Building one inside it is harder, because you are working in a heritage interior with no hall services, no loading bay and no forklift.
Three rooms, and the rules change in each one
| What it had to do | |
|---|---|
| Room 1 | Recessed illuminated cases — a grid of ceramic vessels read as one object from the doorway |
| Room 2 | Wall-mounted textile in a lit recess, hung with no visible fixings |
| Room 3 | Angled plinths for turned wood and lacquerware, lit directionally |
| Garden | Separate outdoor installation, specified and built to the same finish standard |
Gallery lighting is a different discipline
On a trade stand you light the whole space and let the products sit in it. In a gallery you light the object and let the room go dark.
Every case here is a recess cut into a dark wall with its own concealed source, so the light appears to come from the object rather than from a fitting. A visitor should not be able to find the lamp. That is a fabrication problem before it is a lighting problem — the recess depth, the return angle and the shadow gap all have to be right in the workshop, because there is no adjusting them on site in a protected building.
Working inside a heritage venue
An exhibition hall gives you power drops, rigging points, a level floor and a dock. A gallery gives you none of that.
So the whole exhibition was fabricated and finished off site and assembled by hand, in pieces sized to go through the existing doors. Colour and carpet were sampled and approved before anything was made, because a heritage interior will not tolerate a second attempt. Nothing was fixed to the historic fabric.
Why it matters
Most stand builders cannot do this work, and most exhibition designers have never had to. It proves three things at once: we can hold a museum-level finish, we can work in a building with no exhibition services, and we can deliver for a national cultural institution rather than a commercial exhibitor.
It is also our only Milan Design Week credential, in the busiest week in the design calendar, at the address that week is organised around.
Services delivered
- Exhibition design development and technical drawings for three rooms and the garden
- Materials, colour and carpet sampling for client approval
- Off-site fabrication and finishing
- Concealed display lighting
- Hand installation inside a heritage interior, and full reinstatement on dismantling
Frequently asked questions
Do you build gallery and museum exhibitions as well as trade stands?
Yes. This exhibition ran across three gallery rooms and a garden at Rossana Orlandi in Milan, with recessed illuminated display cases and concealed lighting throughout.
Can you work in a venue with no loading bay or rigging points?
Yes. Everything here was made off site, sized to pass through existing doorways and assembled by hand, with nothing fixed to the historic building.
Do you work during Milan Design Week?
Yes. Our workshop is twenty minutes from Rho, which matters most in the week when every supplier in Milan is fully booked.