MADE expo 2009

We are familiar with Milan as a major centre for design during the Salone del Mobile. However, we also wanted to know how MADE expo, which specialises in products for the construction industry, is developing as a counterpart to Munich's BAU. With 200,000 visitors and 1,800 exhibitors it is only slightly smaller than the Munich fair (211,000; 1,924), but with a greater regional orientation towards Italy.

Both fairs enthusiastically reported record visitor numbers and don't seem to have been affected by the general mood of crisis. This allows us at least to hope that the many economic rescue packages really will help to produce a revival in the building industry. In terms of content both MADE and BAU provided a cross section of everything which is used in construction: facade design, windows, and interior furnishings such as floor coverings, bathroom fittings and wallpapers, together with some interesting new developments from the world of materials and new methods of processing them.
Much of this will now find its way into the Architonic Product Library. As a foretaste we have attached some interesting developments on the subject of facades, an area which impressed us as being especially innovative, with materials which we know from interiors or from furniture increasingly appearing on facades. The homogeneous design of roof and facade areas may well become a trend in architecture.