PRADA FRAMES 2025: “IN TRANSIT”

Images courtesy of Prada

A Moving Conversation on Design, Infrastructure, and Society

As Milan swells with design devotees for Salone del Mobile, a quieter yet no less compelling narrative unfolds beyond the fairgrounds. Now in its fourth edition, Prada Frames—the annual symposium curated by the design and research studio Formafantasma—returns as a critical forum exploring the cultural and ecological implications of design. More than an event, it is a platform where scholarship and spatial poetics converge.

Alice Rawsthorn, Jesse LeCavalier, Marina Otero Verzier, Rose George, Kate Crawford, Alice Rawsthorn, Simone Farresin, Natalia Grabowska, Andrea Trimarchi | Alice Rawsthorn, Nelly Ben Hayoun, Andrea Trimarchi, Giacomo Abbruzzese, Simone Farresin, Natalia Grabowska 

This year’s edition, titled In Transit, delves into the complex networks that enable and constrain movement—of people, goods, information, and power. In doing so, it reframes infrastructure not merely as utility, but as a living, ideological construct—one that underpins contemporary life yet often remains unseen.

Far from showcasing product, Prada Frames occupies a rarefied position within the design week landscape, one where inquiry supersedes consumption. The symposium invites architects, designers, historians, scientists, and philosophers to examine the built and unbuilt systems shaping global mobility—raising urgent questions about access, inequality, and the contradictions of hyper-connectivity.

Presented by Molteni&C

At the heart of this intellectual voyage is a striking pairing of venues, each steeped in history and resonance. One is the Arlecchino, a 1950s train designed by Gio Ponti and Giulio Minoletti, recently restored by Fondazione FS Italiane. With its aerodynamic silhouette, glass partitions, and swivel armchairs, the Arlecchino becomes a metaphor in motion: a space of reflection gliding through the Italian landscape.

Equally evocative is the Padiglione Reale within Milan’s Central Station—once a private waiting room for royalty and dignitaries. Rarely open to the public, the pavilion offers an opulent, almost cinematic backdrop for discussions on privilege, access, and the symbolic architecture of power.

Together, these spaces not only house the dialogue but enhance it—projecting meaning through material, context, and form. They allow architecture to act not simply as a frame for conversation, but as an active participant in it.