No Boundaries Design: Design as an Act of Radical Inquiry
From April 7 to 13, 2025, during Milan Design Week, the Porta Venezia Design District returns as a key player in the Fuorisalone with its third edition, under the theme of No Boundaries Design.
An event that celebrates creativity without borders, promoting a free and inclusive vision of contemporary design.
Porta Venezia, with its Liberty architecture and cosmopolitan spirit, has always been a symbol of innovation and cultural exchange. The design district born in this area values diversity and has established itself as a reference point for cutting-edge design.
In just two years, the new district has hosted 45 installations and 300 designers from around the world, showing extraordinary growth: in 2024, with 60,000 visitors, it marked a +50% increase compared to its first year. This success was also confirmed by winning the Fuorisalone Award 2024 for the installation Re-Creation by LASVIT, a leader in glass craftsmanship.
For 2025, the Porta Venezia Design District remains one of the most anticipated destinations of Milan Design Week, ready to surprise once again.
The Theme: No Boundaries Design. To Create, One Must First Question Everything
“To create, one must first question everything”
In this new edition, the Porta Venezia Design District presents a theme that challenges the boundaries of design thinking: design is not just creation, but an act of deep questioning between what exists and what could exist. In a world where the physical reality merges with the digital, the boundaries between technology, art, science, and nature are continuously redefined.
No Boundaries Design is not just a theme, but a manifesto: to create, one must first question every certainty.
This legacy is reflected in the figure of Eileen Gray (1878-1976), a pioneer of modernism and a voice outside the mainstream in the world of design and architecture. With her visionary approach, Gray overcame the conventions of her time, rejecting rigid distinctions between art, design, and architecture. Her works, such as the famous E-1027 Adjustable Table and Villa E-1027, represent a fusion of aesthetics and functionality, experimentation and expressive freedom.
Following her example, No Boundaries Design acts as a trigger for new design possibilities. The contemporary designer is no longer just an executor of functions, but an explorer of hybrid spaces, a storyteller, and a catalyst for questions.
Like Eileen Gray, today’s design does not accept boundaries, but redefines them.
What to Expect from Porta Venezia Design District?
In a landscape marked by conventions and established paradigms, the Porta Venezia Design District stands as an immersive and widespread journey. Here, the language of design becomes a tool for deconstruction, re-signification, and cultural and social exploration.
Through installations, innovative materials, and processes, the exhibition narrative translates into experience the thinking of Eileen Gray. The object is never static, the space is never definitive, and the user is never passive.
The works on display challenge every boundary – between interior and exterior, between functional and poetic, between memory and future. They transform into visual and tactile questions that stimulate new ways of interaction and perception.
Here, design is freed from all dogmatic constraints to become a critical act, an exercise in possibilities, a gesture of inquiry. The Porta Venezia Design District thus establishes itself as a constantly evolving ideas laboratory. The concept of limit dissolves to make room for discovery.
To create means, first and foremost, to question. Only by breaking down the boundaries of thought can we redefine the meaning of contemporary design.
Prima Assicurazioni Main Partner of PVDD: The Installation with Toiletpaper
In a meeting of innovation, art, and urban identity, Prima Assicurazioni, the tech company that has revolutionized the Italian insurance sector, becomes the Main Partner of the Porta Venezia Design District 2025. It joins forces with the visionary creative studio TOILETPAPER, founded by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari.
This collaboration redefines urban spaces through a bold artistic intervention: the famous snakes of TOILETPAPER will wrap around the Bastioni di Porta Venezia, becoming a symbol of a dynamic reality, in constant transformation, but always true to its essence. A concept that reflects the spirit of Milan, a city in perpetual evolution, and that of Prima Assicurazioni, which in just ten years has established itself as a market leader, with over 4 million active clients, without ever losing its innovative drive.
This installation is not just an urban work of art but a powerful metaphor for our time. In an era where experimentation and contamination drive new visions, technology becomes the engine of a future without boundaries. An idea that perfectly reflects the philosophy of No Boundaries Design, where every barrier dissolves to make room for new connections and possibilities.
PORTA VENEZIA DESIGN DISTRICT 2025: The Projects
Here is the map and the complete list of all the projects present in the district:
The official website of Porta Venezia Design District: https://www.portaveneziadesigndistrict.com/it/
