Annalisa Rosso: “Salone Raritas is a necessary bridge between the one-off designer piece and the global design market”

Salone Raritas grew out of an analysis in depth. In recent years we’ve observed major shifts in the design market. Among them, we’ve been struck by the increasingly significant demand for pieces capable of expressing not only an economic value but also a cultural and identitarian value. It’s more than just collecting: it’s the growing appeal of objects with a strong expressive capacity for important projects, whether in private homes or the hospitality sector, items that complete the offering of industrial design. For this reason, bringing one-off pieces, limited editions, antiques and refined craftsmanship to the Salone del Mobile is a natural evolution.   

The Salone has always acted as a mirror of changes in the sector, and the context we’re working in today calls for great flexibility in talking to different professionals and markets. This is the great potential of Salone Raritas, its ability to embed itself in the contemporary setting by responding to an evolution in the market. For the first time, we wanted to create a direct bridge between the offer of rare furnishings and objects and the business-to-business segment, responding to the ever-growing demand from visitors to the fair for special pieces, capable of bringing not just economic value but also containing cultural and identitarian values. As the subtitle of Salone Raritas says: Curated Icons, Unique Objects, and Outsider Pieces.

We held intense talks with Formafantasma, starting from the very idea of this project. We wanted a recognizable space that would also be in continuity with the identity of the Salone. It wasn’t easy to imagine a unified setting capable of enhancing the value of the exhibitors, who differ widely in terms of geographies, types of objects and languages. For this reason, the space of the Raritas Pavilion does not have a rigid design but adapts in terms of volumes, proportions and colours, accompanying the variety of pieces without imposing uniformity. We have imagined a layout that invites visitors to move around and discover the various exhibitors, a fascinating experience that enables each visitor to identify the objects with which they feel the closest affinity. The public of the Salone is also extremely varied, and we wanted everyone to be able to find precisely what appeals to them.

The broad variety of voices is important, but the quality of the offering has to remain very high. The cultural and material value of the projects was a guideline. The space and number of exhibitors, if compared to the rest of the Salone, is highly selective, being divided into three macro-areas: collectibles and contemporary research, fine crafts and antiques. It is important for each to be represented in a solid way, not just symbolically. At the same time, we have selected interlocutors who are aware of the context in which they’re inserted. The Salone is a platform frequented by major buyers, developers, hospitality and contract professionals. We have identified those possessing the ability to engage in a structural and non-episodic dialogue with the project market, without distorting their identity.

The rare earth magnet is the visual heart of “A Matter of Salone”, the 2026 campaign curated by Motel409 that explores the profound meaning of project design today through the language of art photography. We started with a question: what meaning can design take on today? The material is the origin of everything, not just a physical substance but repository of memory and value. Hence a story in images took shape that developed around material subjects. For Salone Raritas, the choice of the magnet is not accidental. Rare earths are essential components, precious and endowed with an intrinsic attractive force. They perfectly represent the identity of the galleries involved and the pieces that we will be seeing at the fair in April: unique, experimental objects, capable of generating culture.