Rabat – Crowds in hundreds of thousands flood Milan each year for the Salone del Mobile, the world’s premier furniture and interior design fair. The event fills the city with top-of-the-line designers and their newest, most extravagant collections.
This year, April 9-14, the renowned Moroccan designer Hicham Lahlou will exhibit alongside them, as he flies to Italy to display his design project “African Sounds.” The work is a collaboration with Italian brand CITCO—a leading designer in marble—and, like many of Lahlou’s designs, it celebrates African art and diversity.
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“African Sounds” constructs an African continent using marble castanets, like those of Moroccan Gnawa music. The piece is a tribute to Moroccan identity and, at the same time, the wealth and breadth of African culture, the many castanets interlocking to form a single whole.
The Medinit Expo in Casablanca featured “African Sounds” in 2018, but April will be its first venture onto the world stage.
The exhibition solidifies Lahlou’s reputation as one of Africa’s most significant designers. Museums like the Vitra Design Museum, the Guggenheim Bilbao, and the Kunsthal Rotterdam have all shown his work, and he serves on the board of the World Design Organization.
But despite Lahlou’s international success, Morocco remains at the heart of his craft. Most recently, he worked with local craftsmen to design and furnish the elegant interiors of Morocco’s new high-speed train stations, which launched late last year.
The Salone del Mobile will further recognize Lahlou next week at a concert by the Filarmonica della Scala orchestra, where he will be a guest of honor.
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