Milan Design Week 2026: The Architects' Guide
Five architect-led installations defined Milan Design Week 2026 — and the loudest of them is Lina Ghotmeh’s 17-metre pink labyrinth of 18 MDF modules dropped inside the Cortile d’Onore of Palazzo Litta. The next four — Zaha Hadid Architects’ titanium organism for Audi at Portrait Milano, Rem Koolhaas’s circular Forum for the inaugural Salone Contract at Rho Fiera, the BBPR-designed Torre Velasca opened to the public for the first time in its 67-year life, and Alessandro Scandurra’s 16-metre ring of Ukrainian school rubble in the cloisters of Università Statale — are not accessories. Together they form the architectural spine of the festival the Milan Design Week 2026 guide tries to map. The question this article answers is narrow and useful: which architects led the week, what did they actually build, and what does the line they drew through the city tell you about where the festival’s centre of gravity has moved? ...