EuroCucina 2016: overview and trends

While it has proved necessary to add a new division devoted to luxury inside the furnishing pavilions, in order to respond to a growing trend, a similar mechanism would appear superfluous at EuroCucina. For some while, the quest for material and formal sophistication in the kitchen equipment sector has reached extraordinary heights. It is probably fair to say that the kitchen space has now become an accepted status symbol.

Materials that were once the preserve of living rooms, from precious marbles to exotic woods, are now frequently employed. But the research does not stop here: unlike living areas, kitchens are the subject of ongoing efforts to make technology increasingly efficient and “silent.” In its Genius Loci system Valcucine, for example, has employed a “VAssistant” touchpad that works as a “wellness hub”. But Electrolux, in particular, has caught the imagination with its steam oven (Combi Steam Pro Smart), mounted with an integral camera for monitoring cooking remotely via an app! Still on the subject of ovens, Gaggenau’s Combi Vapore 400 is equipped with a special drawer for vacuum-packed items.

Elica, too, has built a smartphone holder and a USB port into its Bio hood. Technological research into materials has also been ongoing, as seen in Arclinea’s harnessing of the new PVD process, which gives a particularly durable colour to steel. The range of colour, as evidenced in Italia, designed by Antonio Citterio, does not merely include stainless steel, but also bronze, copper and champagne.

On the subject of the composition of fitted kitchens, the Belgian architects Vincent van Duysen, regarded as a master of the minimalist approach, has redesigned Dada’s successful Hi-Line kitchen, with an assured mixture of natural stone, black aluminium and different sorts of wood. In an equally dry and elegant approach, Giuseppe Bavuso’s L-Lab for Ernestomeda is a large expanse of alternating filled and unfilled spaces, inspired by the syntax of industrial kitchens. The Japanese company Sanwa, making its first appearance at EuroCucina, also subscribes to this technical and formal merger. Another Japanese, the master Makio Hasuike, has designed an interesting and mysterious black monolith for Aran Cucine.

Equally, there is no shortage of references to the past: Snaidero, celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, has entrusted Massimo Iosa Ghini with the Frame project, reprising the concept of the great traditional Italian kitchens. Speaking of tradition, the most evocative kitchen component is indubitably the dresser, often disconnected from the fitted kitchen to become a representative element in its own right once more.

The figures
Salone del Mobile.Milano: 270,000 m2 of net exhibition space and 2,407 exhibitors – including the 650 SaloneSatellite designers – 30% of them foreign companies.

EuroCucina: 122 exhibitors (Italian 94 – foreign 28) over 22,000 square metres. Pavilions 9-11 and 13-15.

FTK (Technology For the Kitchen): 39 exhibitors (Italian 16 – foreign 23); over 11,600 square metres.

* For further information:  Eurocucina website / www.salonemilano.it/en/