ALTROVE: stories of places and design

ALTROVE is an initiative created by Tortona Rocks - one of the key players in Milan’s Fuorisalone - to experiment with new approaches to design by establishing cultural short circuits between design and the city.

The beating heart of the Fuorisalone ventures outside its historical home of Opificio 31 to kick off a satellite project intended to forge new and unexpected urban geographies. In straying from its native area, the project aims to nurture an original dialogue between design and Milan, break out of the usual exhibition routes, and make everyday places the stage for new hybrid experiences, visual and conceptual interminglings. For the 2023 edition, the urban incursion will set its sights on the Giambellino neighbourhood.

Given that Milan is the undisputed capital of design, going off the beaten track involves pouring even more energy into emphasising this link by helping it spread to new sites, new neighbourhoods, thus making it more inclusive and surprising. Not ‘venues’ in the traditional sense, but settings which maintain their own identity and activity, seamlessly coexisting with the presence of a selection of out-of-context design objects, urban epiphanies whose collocation amplifies the sense of discovery and belonging.

In collaboration with MilanoSecrets, the platform that shows Milan through the lens of its most unusual and exclusive addresses, this year ALTROVE will explore the Giambellino neighbourhood, an urban stage which is still animated by its own local spirit, yet with an unquenchable thirst for transformation. Carefully curated by MilanoSecrets, this unconventional tour will shine a rare spotlight on eight everyday places - from a pharmacy to an anthropological food laboratory - showing them to be new addresses to explore, with exciting addition of design objects located there temporarily during design week, striking up a site-specific dialogic relationship with their surroundings.

This innovative map of the neighbourhood includes the Gogol & Company bookshop, the Trillino Selvaggio Art Centre, Farmacia Tolstoi, El Vinatt wine bar, the Tu Mi Fai Girar rotisserie, food anthropology laboratory LAC, the Pastamordolce pastry shop, the Campagnolo Milanese food market, and renowned restaurant Tagiura. The design selection process, curated by Tortona Rocks, involved both Italian and international designers, up-and-coming young talents along with more well-established firms who will offer reflections on modern life through design interventions that merge intriguingly with their assigned locations.