The sixty-first edition of the Salone del Mobile in Milan has just ended, accompanied by the Fuorisalone, which in this edition has expanded to cover almost the entire city.

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As we know, design is based on metaphors, and Inspired in Barcelona: SPA, the project created by architect and designer Guillermo Santomà, driven by the Government of Catalonia (ACCIÓ - Catalonia Trade & Investment) and the Department of Tourism and Creative Industries of the Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona Design Hub, organized by BcD - Barcelona centre de Disseny and with SIMON as Concept Partner, is precisely that: on the one hand, light and its power to transform spaces and surrounding materials, and on the other hand, the potential of the lighting sector in Catalonia and Barcelona.

The Church of Santa Maria del Carmine welcomed numerous international guests at the opening event, and throughout the week, 15,500 visitors connected with the installation. These numbers confirm that Santomà's artistic skills and his project, created with the collaboration of eight Catalan lighting companies, have made a 360-degree representation of the power of the lighting sector in Catalonia. Equally important has been the conceptual collaboration of our partner, SIMON, which, with its vocation for both technological research and artistic expression, is committed to investigate the culture of light intrinsically linked to the spaces where we live.

The Inspired in Barcelona: SPA installation has been an architectural space where Santomà has worked on light as a material, deploying it on multiple levels, exploring visual and thermal frequencies, and bringing it into contact with both architectural and human bodies and different surfaces. Santomà's intention has been to investigate how light acts and its transformative capacity, sculpting new forms, modifying morphology, in a relationship that is always fluid and changing.

SPA has been a completely experiential installation with several zones: a clay mud spa; a mountain of volcanic gravel heated by infrared lights; a chromotherapy bed on which light diffracted, and, depending on color and frequency, acted differently when in contact with the skin; there has also been a cold point that froze the ambient humidity, and the body perceived the temperature contrast, activating blood flow, and a mesh of ultraviolet light on the ceiling, often electromagnetic outside the visible spectrum, which tinted the space blue while disinfecting it, emphasizing a new functionality of light.

ProtoPixel has been the technological partner of Inspired in Barcelona: SPA, and the following lighting companies have collaborated: Bover, Estiluz, Faro Barcelona, Lamp, Marset, Parachilna, and Vibia.

The opening party was a complete success, where we were able to offer guests a glass of Mastinell cava, our Opening Partner.

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This year's Milan Design Week featured 36 Catalan companies between the fair and the Fuorisalone.

The goal of the Inspired in Barcelona initiative is to promote Catalonia's design sector and the Barcelona brand internationally, highlighting values such as creativity, design, architecture, and trends.

Inspired in Barcelona will return to Milan Design Week in 2024 with a new exhibition.

For more information, visit www.inspiredinbarcelona.com and the Instagram account @inspiredinbarcelona.