An urban horizon dawns at the 2024 Salone Del Mobile.Milano with Kartell’s new collection.

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At the intersection of skylines and cultures  Kartell’s new collection, Urban Horizons, emerged during the 2024 edition of Salone del Mobile.Milano. A beaming tribute to the city in which the company was first rooted, and where subsequent seeds of creation continue to blossom. Among the brand's innovative universe of living designs, this year's collection was revitalized by its impressive list of designers, which include the likes of Ferruccio Laviani, Philippe Starck, Piero Lissoni, Ludovica Serafini + Roberto Palomba among others.

Ranging from wood to fabric, glass to aluminum, recycled to renewable, great attention is paid to materials, with variations allowing for indoor and outdoor use. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and furniture serves more than one function–even a chair is more than just a seat. In the H.H.H. collection designed by Philippe Starck, each chair is a throne– a ritual, a sign of everyday practice. A sign that perhaps each and every habit, even one as ingrained as the surrender of a body to a seat, has a meaning that can make us feel something more potent that the ennui of mundane life has yet to realize. While some things may be rooted, new seeds can always bloom. Like that of TERESA, designed by Ferruccio Laviani, with its graceful curves and unfurling petals, this lamp adds a new dimension to Kartell’s lighting collection and stands as a bright symbol for new growth.

With all of this new expansion, Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba’s Hiray Collection, shines a new light on life in the city, which need not be defined by customary questions like indoor or outdoor. Whilst maintaining an affinity for the filigree of the human ecosystem, Palomba and Serafini explore what it takes for the city to transform into the oases we find outdoors. The Hiray Collection consists of sinuous, sunny transparencies in three dimensional form. Standing as a symbol of life in the open, the collection inspires the idea of unrestricted life in a forest city–propagating life, not confining it.

See below, a conversation with designers Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba about Kartell's Bosco in città project, Hiray Collection, sustainability, and inspiration in the creative process.

Tell us about your inspiration for Bosco in città and for this new iteration of Hiray? What drew you to the idea of a forest in the city?

The Hiray Collection is part of a broader project by Kartell called "Bosco in Città."

Our dream is for cities to become increasingly green, where outdoor and indoor living blend into a lifestyle. Imagine yourself in a forest with the sun filtering through the branches, listening to the sounds of nature, feeling the grass beneath your feet, and breathing in the scents of spring.

There was a time when our cities transformed into true green oases. Our dream is to live immersed in nature.

We have worked on capturing these sensations for the Hiray Collection, focusing on the experience of being on the grass, enveloped by sunlight, and relaxing while gazing at the sky. These are the vibrations that have inspired us.

How did you balance your creative vision and design language with the ethos and legacy of Kartell in this collection?  

We have worked with materials and technologies that have interpreted our inspirations in an ethical and sustainable manner.

What role do form, function, and sustainability play in your design process?

Sustainability is a must: It's the new Form – Follow - Function.

How do you feel your experience as architects affects your work as designers and vice versa?

For us, it's about a single ecosystem: our vision is an emotional environment.

What are some of the unique challenges of creating indoor/outdoor furniture?

Nowadays, it's all one single environment, the challenge is just waterproof. In recent years, there has been incredible evolution regarding materials, woods/fabrics/metals – today, indoor design is starting to become almost more interesting than outdoor.

Outside of the studio, where have you been finding inspiration lately?

Paul Smith created a book some time ago titled: "You can find inspirations in everything,”  – We agree.

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