Alcova 2026 takes over two of Milan's forgotten icons with experimental installations

Throughout the Milan Design Week, Alcova reaffirms its position as one of the most experimental territories on the circuit by occupying, once again, spaces outside the city's institutional axis. In 2026, the show unfolds between two settings of opposing natures — a preserved modernist residence and a vast decommissioned hospital complex — to investigate how contemporary design can operate in direct dialogue with layers of time, architecture, and use.

Center for Creativity. (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

The choice of sites is not merely scenographic but conceptual. On one side, the rationalist precision of a domestic work that has spanned decades almost intact; on the other, the fragmented and organic scale of a public infrastructure in transformation. Between these extremes, Alcova constructs a narrative that oscillates between preservation and reinvention, bringing together more than a hundred exhibitors across independent designers, established brands, and educational institutions.

Baggio Military Hospital: ruin, scale, and experimentation

Baggio Military Hospital. (Luigi Fiano e Ardesia Coco/CASACOR)

(Alcova/CASACOR)

The Baggio Military Hospital expands Alcova to an almost urban scale. Described as a “city within the city,” the complex returns to the program with new access points and routes, revealing areas previously inaccessible, such as the church, historical archives, and large industrial structures.

Baggio Military Hospital. (Luigi Fiano e Ardesia Coco/CASACOR)

(Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

The site's hybrid condition — where spontaneous vegetation and institutional architecture coexist — creates a project conducive to interventions that explore the idea of transition. Rather than neutralizing the character of the space, the projects appropriate its raw materiality, incorporating imperfections, voids, and marks of time as part of the narrative.

Leo Lague + VERSA. (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

One of the most emblematic examples is Devices for Connection, by Leo Lague in collaboration with the collective Versa, installed in the complex's church. The proposal combines light, sound, and technology to create an immersive project that investigates design as a mediator of spiritual experiences, suggesting a reconnection with less tangible dimensions of contemporary life.

Supaform. (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

Seat in Touch, by Supaform in collaboration with Esthetic Joys Embassy, stems from an observation of public spaces, such as transport stations, to propose a sofa system that encourages new forms of conviviality. By incorporating ceramic elements developed by the Bouroullec brothers, the installation transforms utilitarian references into a project that oscillates between infrastructure and expanded domesticity.

Design Academy Eindhoven (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

But it is in the multiplicity of proposals scattered throughout the complex that Alcova reveals its most provocative facet. Projects presented in different wings — from the former kitchen to the laundry, through archives and outdoor areas — explore hybrid objects and unexpected situations: from experiments that imagine banquets for rodents to sound devices with a retro aesthetic, to pieces that seem to oscillate between archaeological artifact and futuristic prototype.

VOCLA. (Alcova/CASACOR)

This fragmented approach also extends to the parallel program. In the same hangars, talks and gatherings discuss hospitality, culture, and technology, while at night the space is transformed with VOCLA, an initiative that blends design, music, and social life in an ephemeral occupation of an almost performative nature.

Villa Pestarini: modernism as living matter

Villa Pestarin. ( Luigi Fiano e Ardesia Cocca/CASACOR)

Accessible to the public for the first time, Villa Pestarini introduces an almost intimate dimension to Alcova. Designed by Franco Albini in the late 1930s, the house remains one of the most rigorous examples of Italian rationalism on a domestic scale. Its composition — marked by restrained volumes, light surfaces, glass blocks, and a calibrated relationship with the garden — establishes a setting where every intervention must negotiate with an architecture already laden with meaning.

Villa Pestarini. (Luigi Fiano/CASACOR)

Far from functioning as a simple backdrop, the villa asserts itself as a curatorial device. The projects presented explore this tension by alternating between reverence and displacement: re-editions of historic pieces dialogue with new creations, while contemporary installations reinterpret recurring elements of Albini's vocabulary, such as movable partitions, sculptural staircases, and integrated furniture.

Haworth & Cassina by Patricia Urquiola. (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

Haworth & Cassina by Patricia Urquiola. (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

Among the highlights, the installation developed by Patricia Urquiola for Haworth and Cassina articulates past and present by bringing together re-editions of Albini's iconic pieces with contemporary creations from both the Alcova Shop and the collective Atelier dell’Errore. The proposal is not limited to a historical reading: by inserting these pieces into a new context, it makes evident how the modern vocabulary can still be reactivated and reinterpreted.

ISSE x Sophie Dires. (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

This dialogue with the rationalist heritage expands in other interventions throughout the house. The brand Boccamonte, for instance, presents a collection inspired by the architect Luisa Castiglioni, a collaborator of Albini, while studios such as ISSÉ in partnership with Sophie Dries explore more narrative projects, as in Playinghouse, which revisits the idea of domesticity in a playful, almost scenographic way.

Elisa Uberti. (Piergiorgio Sorgetti/CASACOR)

Across the different projects — from the ground floor to the garden —, names such as Elisa Uberti, OOG Objects, Ryuichi Kozeki, and Sema Topaloğlu Studio propose varied readings of the domestic space, sometimes through sculptural objects, sometimes through subtler interventions that integrate with the existing architecture. The result is a route that alternates precision and experimentation, where the villa's formal rigor serves as a counterpoint to more sensory and material approaches.