Brera Design District

During the days of the Fuorisalone, the design district par excellence opens the doors of its workshops, of the most prestigious showrooms and of temporary spaces on private premises of evocative beauty, to citizens and tourists curious to discover this timeless hidden corner of Milan.

Brera Design District aims to present Brera as a point of reference for Milanese design, an operation of Territorial marketing. Through a system of communication dedicated to the promotion of points of Excellence and Strength active in the territory, it intends to enrich the cultural offer and the appeal of the district, able to combine tradition and innovation in the diffuse field of design.
Brera Design District was born in the historic Milanese quarter of Brera, a location which has for centuries provided a fundamental contribution to the cultural, artistic and commercial life of the city. The boundaries of BDD go from the Bastioni di Porta Nuova to Via Broletto, from Via Legnano to Via Montenapoleone, taking in historic buildings of great cultural importance such as the Fine Arts Academy, the Piccolo Teatro (Little Theatre) and the San Simpliciano Basilica.
Brera is a place rich in charm and culture, a world used to setting the trends, where art, fashion and design are interwoven.

Brera Design District is a project of the platform Milano Design Network by Studiolabo (of which also the system www.Fuorisalone.it forms part) and Marco Torrani, president of Assomab.
All the initiatives and the map of the events are available on: www.breradesigndistrict.it
Printed Material on: www.breradesigndistrict.it/press

Design Lessons
Be District: creating connections, communicating innovation

Brera Design District inaugurates its 5th edition, to run from 8 to 13 April 2014.
The most important international brands will be coming together in the historic district of Brera, Milan with a full programme of appointments open to the public. To date the participation of 70 events is confirmed and this is expected to exceed 100 by the week of the Fuorisalone.
In continuity with the previous edition, whose theme was a critical reflection on the forms and values of quality between “Craft making and Industrial thinking”, Brera Design District presents “Lessons in Design” and proposes the theme “Be District: creating connections, communicating innovation”.

Design Lessons is a contemplation whose object is the promotion of design culture, where the history of design and the experiences in the field are the key to understanding the contemporary scene, which goes hand in hand with innovation.
To do this it has been decided to return to the schoolroom, starting from the origin and the study of design itself. Hence the choice of presenting a series of initiatives linked to knowledge and learning, with the aim of creating a system, promoting a new philosophy.

“Be District: creating connections, communicating innovation”: being a district means first of all creating connections. The time interval between the creation of new products, the addition of value to those already existing and their launching on the market is becoming shorter the world over. Where there is a high technological quotient this process is even faster.
We must aspire to the creation of generative systems because these have an inexhaustible capacity to connect users together and enable them to create new values and new products. This is the message that we want to convey to the businesses and to all those in the profession.

Starting from this edition Brera Design District is also introducing the Design Lessons Prize, a symbolic award dedicated to those who stand out internationally thanks to their own lesson in design, a case history excelling in generating innovation and high-level content.

The award for this edition goes to Ambra Medda, co-founder of Design Miami – with which she has revolutionized the art exhibition format – and co-founder and Creative Editor of L’Arcobaleno, the online magazine and shop dedicated to collection-level design, a creative workshop bringing together designers, art dealers, curators and creatives in a single format.
Ambra Medda is a perfect interpreter of the theme proposed, her work with L’Arcobaleno establishes a new format of design promotion and communication, a reference point for those involved professionally. She has promoted a new way of communicating design online, a blend of design, art, fashion and music, an encounter between designer items, new faces and limited edition e-commerce.

There will also be a valuable contribution on the subject from AIS/Design, the Italian Association of Design Historians created in 2009 to promote and spread historical knowledge about design outside the academic world. As stated by Raimonda Riccini, vice-president of the Association and editor of the online magazine AIS/Design, “historical research into design is not a discipline closed in on itself, but is fed by the questions emerging from the contemporary world, it lives in relationship with the present, it enters into tune with the demand for image by companies, it contributes to strengthening the cultural initiatives of businesses, bodies, museums, even retail…”.
The Italian Association of Design Historians (AIS/Design), together with Brera Design District, proposes to initiate a debate and a programme of activities for discovering the history of design through an innovative interpretation, functional to the reading of the contemporary world and the determination of new marketing strategies for the companies of related activity.

An open encounter also with Aldo Cibic and Giulio Iacchetti, two highly active people on the Italian panorama, who will be exhibiting in the Brera Design District, whom we have asked for a contribution and an exchange of ideas on the subject.

Contributions on the theme also from the MDFF (Milano Design Film Festival) an audio-visual communication project dedicated to the dissemination of design, of the project and creativity, but it is also the expression of the will and the ability to innovate, creating increasingly rich and advanced systems of communication.
A first and new multichannel platform, MDFF, with the patronage of Milan City Council and Expo 2015, features a high quality of content and an unprecedented, effective capacity for dialogue with the public and consumers, in the belief that the audio-visual medium is able to entertain and inform simultaneously.

Finally Brera Design District 2014, with the patronage of Milan City Council – Department of Culture, Fashion and Design, Chair Cristina Tajani, and Department of Commerce, Tourism, Productive Activities and Territorial Marketing, Chair Franco D’Alfonso – wishes to emphasise the importance of Milan as an international reference point and showcase for the design-system, whose moment of greatest publicity is its design week.