"Chinese Design" Is a Hot Topic. What Do the Designers at the Milan Furniture Fair Make of It?

At the world's most important design fair, the attention they drew was both predictable and surprising. As talk of Chinese design grows, how do the designers see their new reputation, and what will they do with it?

This year was Zhang Lei's sixth Milan Design Week. He founded the design studio Pinwu Liuxing, and his latest work is two exhibition series: "Rong: Handmade In Hangzhou" and "From Yuhang". Over those six years, he told QDaily, "we've gone from one or two Chinese designers in the first year to dozens exhibiting at Milan Design Week now. That's a very good thing."

This may have been Chinese design's strongest showing in Milan yet. Pingze Home passed selection for the first time and entered the main exhibition of the Milan Furniture Fair. Designer Yuan Yuan launched her independent brand ROOY. Benwu Studio presented the "Apartment Shanghai" exhibition. Yiwai Design showed its "Micro Landscape" stationery series. Xuberance won first prize at the Salone Satellite Awards with its original 3D-printed designs. And Eryu Studio brought its work "Layers of Geology", along with the "Heart · Object" exhibition curated by Yang Dongjiang, a professor at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University.

Furniture brands and independent studios alike, each of these trips to Milan has made "Chinese design" easier to recognize at Milan Design Week.

Yuan Yuan is the former design director of the Qumei Furniture R&D Center. Last year she began developing her own brand and applied, under her studio's name, for a booth at this year's Milan Furniture Fair. After several months of selection, she heard at the end of last year that she could exhibit. "The Milan fair is an open platform for the whole world, so I thought, why not take the chance to introduce ROOY to everyone and hear their views and suggestions from different angles."

(Phoenix Fan)

(Viewing Stone)

(Light Fan)

(Cloud Duckweed)

Whether she is making chairs, sofas, screens or tea tables, Yuan Yuan wants her work to bring out an Eastern aesthetic, as the product names show: Light Fan, Phoenix Fan, Viewing Stone and Cloud Duckweed. The pieces set out to avoid the heaviness of traditional Chinese furniture. In her words, "Traditional Chinese and contemporary Western ways of living keep clashing and blending. The traditional way of life is too solemn and tends to stifle innovation, while contemporary innovation tends to lose its regional character." Through ROOY she wants to find a point of view that lets innovation draw on both tradition and the present, and then fly free.

The response from visitors encouraged her greatly. "People here understood ROOY's products far better than we expected. Many could name a piece's theme without any explanation from us. Perhaps that proves nature is a language all humans share, and the root of aesthetics."

Yiwai Design brought to Milan an exhibition called "The Rebirth Journey of Discarded Wood". At the earlier Design Shanghai fair, Yiwai's newest series, "Micro Landscape", drew a lot of attention. Huang Guodong, the team's chief designer, told us they decided to exhibit at Design Shanghai only at the last minute, precisely to rehearse how their display would look at Milan Design Week.

What makes "Micro Landscape" stand out is its pairing of ebony offcuts with resin. Huang Guodong explained: "Furniture factories throw these offcuts away because they can't use them. We thought that was a real waste, so we took them back and designed this series around them."

The series includes paperweights, rulers, business card stands, business card cases, pen holders, ring boxes, bow ties and nesting trays. It does not go out of its way to stress Chinese or Eastern design elements, yet in Milan it still drew plenty of positive feedback. "We just explained our idea and what we set out to do, and people all found our way of approaching and solving the problem very clever. They also said the pieces had strong commercial potential."

Where many design teams come to Milan to show their own work, Zhang Lei uses exhibitions to express his ideas.

This year was the third in a row that "Rong: Handmade In Hangzhou" appeared at Milan Design Week. According to Zhang Lei, each Rong exhibition focuses on a single material: bamboo in the first year, silk in the second and, this year, earth. "This year's work will be very different, and the designers are completely different too. There are about 17 designers working with earth this year, and about half of them have never taken part in a Rong exhibition before. So 'earth' covers a very wide range this year: brick, tile, ceramics, cement, coal, mineral pigments and lacquerware all count." The 17 designers, drawn from different fields, broke down the traditional crafts of "earth" and then folded them back into contemporary design.

When Zhang Lei came up with the idea of "Rong" (melting and fusing), he wanted to explore how Chinese designers living in today's China can design in a contemporary design language. The point is not to copy traditional forms and surfaces, but to digest materials, craft and spirit afresh and put them to new use.

In its third year, "Rong" is more about pushing past the designers' own limits. Zhang Lei is curious: "When 'Rong' has run a full five years and we look back, I think what we've gained will be very different. I really want to know what five years will do to the answer to a question, and how it will develop."

What Are We Actually Talking About When We Say "Chinese Design"?

Whenever I talk to designers about Chinese design, it strikes me as a false question. Does it have a continuous line of development? Does it have a sound way of inheriting and building on tradition? Does it have any clear features one could sum up? While the media all discuss "Chinese design in progress" at the Milan Furniture Fair, how do the designers themselves see the question?

Yuan Yuan told QDaily: "China draws international attention because its economy has grown so fast. But its product design industry lags behind its level of economic development, and that has created a hunger, both abroad and at home, for good Chinese design. The attention Chinese design gets keeps growing, and that is exactly the opportunity and the challenge for Chinese designers." ROOY's debut at the Salone Satellite in Milan, and the recognition it won, along with the invitation extended to the "Heart · Object" exhibition, show that Chinese design with clear Eastern aesthetic features is winning more and more recognition.

("Heart · Object" exhibition)

Chi Wing Lo, an ethnically Chinese designer highly regarded in contemporary Italian design, objects to putting too much weight on the idea of "Chinese design."

"As soon as people say Chinese design, they bring up Ming-style furniture and rosewood. That is Chinese, but it is an old China, not contemporary China. We shouldn't always be going on about what our China is like."

Huang Guodong's view is close to Lo's. "Actually I don't think it needs to be raised to the level of 'Chinese design'. As long as it's good design, people accept it readily. I haven't felt any obvious prejudice."

Take Lo's own work. Last year his brand ACF CHI WING LO became the first Chinese brand to enter the main halls of the Milan Furniture Fair, thanks to the reputation he had long since built in Italian design. He spent more than 20 years as chief designer at the major Italian furniture maker Giorgetti. This year he launched his own brand, 1ness. Its work does not imitate the big European design names. Instead it shows ever more clearly his mastery of exacting craft and his use of new materials, in a simpler, more distinctive style.

Zhang Lei, who has spent recent years exploring traditional Chinese crafts and materials, said: "Whether contemporary Chinese design is accepted by the world actually has little to do with the world. It has much more to do with us."

In Zhang Lei's view, commerce shapes contemporary Chinese design heavily, but in the end design is a question of culture. "In technology and skills, we could well catch up with and overtake Europe within a few years or a decade or so. But finding our own road in design may take two or three generations of effort. I don't think Chinese design will be accepted by the world in our generation."

Lo agrees. "Of course it's a long process. It isn't something one or two people, or even one or two generations, can finish. In Europe, too, it was a long, drawn-out movement."

In Milan, exhibiting and seeing exhibitions are the two main activities, and many designers also want to hear first-hand what others really think of Chinese design. As Yang Dongjiang put it, "In Milan you can genuinely interact with foreign designers, and be noticed by foreign media, foreign designers and the foreign public."

Just as a person longs for others' approval, Chinese designers, after years of hearing that "China only has manufacturing, not design" and facing charge after charge of copying, also hope to be accepted by a Europe with a deep design tradition. But Zhang Lei told us this year's Rong exhibition has already moved beyond that. "It's more a discussion about the limits of the designers themselves and of the work. Rong has moved from proving what it can do to re-examining itself. Its most basic purpose is not to be accepted by the world, nor to build some kind of business, nor to become famous overseas. It is to spend five or ten years answering the question Rong poses, and in doing so to explore contemporary design, and how today's designers should make work that belongs to today."

Besides Exhibiting, What Are They Paying Attention To?

Wang Hongchao, a co-founder of Benwu Studio, described a day at Milan Design Week like this: in the morning he sets up his own booth; then he tours the halls, seeing everything inside them plus some of the off-site shows, though he can only skim each one; and in the evening there are get-togethers with fellow designers.

"Apartment Shanghai" exhibition

That may be the daily rhythm for many designers at Milan Design Week.

After all, besides showing their own work, most Chinese designers come here to learn and to exchange ideas. New, young design brands and teams, and furniture makers with a century or more of history, all gather in this one week. There is plenty of open space for discussion, and you can see the newest work from many brands. To some extent, this spring event in Milan sets the year's trends in furniture, accessories, lighting and more.

Between exhibiting, Yuan Yuan visited some of the main exhibition areas and went to dinners with foreign journalists and designer friends. The trip left a deep impression on her. "Overall, Europe's whole chain of design, manufacturing, brand promotion and fair organization still feels very complete and mature. There is a great deal the Chinese industry can learn from it."

But she also talked about the opportunities for Chinese designers. "China's advantage now is the upward push of its economy, and the fact that its designers carry no heavy historical baggage. Europe has so many classic designs and past masters that its new generation of designers actually struggles to move forward and can't surpass the past."

Many designers also keep an eye on emerging talent. "Compared with the commercial areas, the more interesting part is probably the Salone Satellite, where all the work comes from young designers around the world. The pieces may be unfinished, and many are only prototypes, but you can see a distinct angle and attitude, which is quite inspiring," Huang Guodong told us. "The Milan fair is a good time for people in the field to meet. In the evenings everyone eats together and swaps all kinds of insights."

Wang Hongchao, who studied in Switzerland and worked as a designer in New York, wrote a visitor's guide to the Milan Furniture Fair for QDaily last year. His impression: "This year is about the same as last year. It's another off year, even a bit weaker than last year. HAY and some other Nordic design brands didn't come to exhibit."

He told us that over the past three years the top awards at the Salone Satellite have gone to designers from Taiwan, mainland China and Singapore. European design no longer needs promoting and has become rather limited, he said, so the Milan Furniture Fair needs some fresh blood. He mentioned the smart-home range IKEA launched this year, and guessed that young designers who move in that direction next year might well win a Salone Satellite award.

This year's first prize at the Salone Satellite Awards, for example, went to the "Viewing Clouds" series of 3D-printed lamps by Xuberance, an original 3D-printing design studio from Shanghai. The international jury said that "Xuberance has opened up a brand-new aesthetic approach to interpreting and reviving traditional Chinese culture." In effect, the award signals that the international design world sees 3D-printed design and production as a direction for the future.

The "Viewing Clouds" lamps combine classical Chinese culture with contemporary technology, which European designers see as an inventive use of new materials and new technology.

We have reported before on the reflections and debate of British designer Jasper Morrison and American design critic Alice Rawsthorn over whether the furniture fair has become too commercial. Similar criticism has kept surfacing in recent years.

Some feel the furniture design industry needs a thriving trade market like this to sustain it; others believe the fair should center on design, not serve as a showroom floor. Wang Hongchao has noticed that "the Milan fair is turning more and more into a place where people come specifically to buy and place orders. In recent years many design fairs have launched across Europe, and Milan's advantage really is shrinking. There seems to be a sense of loss."

Cover image from Benwu Studio