‘Seoul Lifestyle’ Debuts in Milan
The Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Design Foundation will hold 「SEOUL LIFE 2026 MILAN – Heritage Reimagined, Soban」, an international exhibition that reinterprets the traditional Korean furniture piece soban through the language of contemporary design, on the occasion of Milan Design Week 2026. The exhibition will be held from April 20 to May 10, 2026, at the ADI Design Museum in Milan, Italy.
Based on the essential values of the soban, this exhibition presents works in which 17 leading young designers and design teams from Korea and abroad reinterpret it in a contemporary way by combining modern technologies and new methods of production, including 3D printing and AI-based design. The works, which combine digital design, experimentation with new materials, and a sensibility for craft, suggest the possibility of tradition not remaining in the past but expanding into the present and the future, and, by being completed through the production processes of artisans, show the point at which design and craft meet, while also presenting the depth and expansiveness of Korean design.
「SEOUL LIFE 2026 MILAN」 seeks to illuminate the essence of Korean living culture through the single object of the soban and to newly connect it within global design discourse. This exhibition, where the wisdom of the past, the technologies of the present, and the possibilities of the future intersect, proposes to the world the distinctive values and expansiveness of life in Seoul.
