Fuorisalone and Wall&Decò: a showroom turned into the cathedral of wallpaper
A scenographic fit-out that amplifies the Wall&Decò collections through rhythm, material and route
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One thousand eight hundred square metres of wallpaper to build a wonder. For the 2023 Fuorisalone, the Wall&Decò showroom in Via Mantegazza, Milan, turns into a cathedral of paper: in just 90 sqm of fitted-out area, over 1,800 sqm of wallpaper were laid, cut into double-sided 10 cm strips. The idea is a mix between a cathedral and a cave: at the entrance a drum built with radial curtains, while the rest of the space opens only along the passages, up to a corridor of strips leading to a video installation. Each wall is coded with a unique working drawing.
The challenge was bold: to create a fit-out for Milan’s Fuorisalone that would generate astonishment and wonder.
Contemporary Wonder. What is the Fuorisalone? It is astonishment, wonder, suggestion and creative stimulus. That is why the fit-out conceived for the Wall&Decò showroom in Via Mantegazza, Milan, had to be outside the usual canons.
Onethousandeighthundredsquaremetres. Wonder, however, has a non-obvious practical side, because to create so much wonder it was necessary to make a major impact. In a fitted-out area of about 90 sqm, over one thousand eight hundred square metres of paper were laid (the walls, cut into 10 cm strips, are double-sided). The idea was to create a cross between a cathedral and a cave of wallpaper. That is why, at the entrance, we created a true drum, as in a church, built from radial curtains, while the rest of the space leaves only the passages free, isolating the back of the showroom — reachable via a corridor made of wallpaper strips — which houses a company video installation.
I’d like all the collections but I have nowhere to put them. Wallpaper catalogues are always rich in collections and colours. Wall&Decò’s is even more so. We wanted to give the company the chance to show the variety of its collections and colours, but there was not enough space. That is why we ‘shredded’ the space into curtains of wallpaper strips, which everyone could admire and touch.
Beautiful, but how do we make it? Each wall has its own cutting working drawing, is coded with an alphanumeric code and is unique. Everything was pre-cut and prepared at the bench, to minimise problems on site and assembly times.
