Held from 7–12 June 2022, Milan’s Salone del Mobile hosted EuroCucina, the 23rd International Kitchen Furniture Exhibition, for the first time in four years. Setting a benchmark for design worldwide, what trends and innovations is EuroCucina cooking up for kitchens?
Salone del Mobile, the flagship event of Milan Design Week held in June, alternates between two specialist exhibitions: Euroluce, the lighting industry’s showcase, and EuroCucina, which charts the direction of kitchen design. In 2022, it was the turn of the world’s leading kitchen brands, and EuroCucina painted a picture of kitchen life in the future.
Today’s kitchens are as important as living rooms: the heart of the home, a multifunctional focal point and the space where most socialising takes place. They are also a growing arena for brands creating high-performance, environmentally friendly, energy-saving and sustainable designs.
What do the leading voices in kitchen design have to say about the trends for 2023?
Having successfully met the enormous challenge of the pandemic, kitchens are no longer just places to prepare and eat food. They are offices for people working from home, homework stations and places where friends gather to prepare a meal together. This multifunctional role points towards new kitchen models. In particular, kitchen islands, especially those integrated with dining tables, are set to rise rapidly.
The key move is to bring the kitchen into harmony with the living room. Shared colours and flooring create a structural connection, while furniture materials, colours and a consistent style establish a new visual and thematic relationship. Closed cabinets conceal equipment, appliances and even sinks and taps, leaving open shelves for objects and accessories more usually associated with living rooms.
Extractor hoods with the aesthetics of light fittings, living-room-style chairs, even armchairs or sofas, rugs and artwork create a crossover between kitchen and living room. The aim is an airy environment inspired by openness and communication, where people can talk and see one another. This also leads us to the second trend:
Invisible kitchens are no longer a dream. A new generation hides an entire working world behind large cabinets and doors, using a remote control, button or even an app to reveal the hob, appliances or sink. Integrated into smart home systems, these solutions close every door with a click, making the kitchen disappear and leaving what resembles a wardrobe system. The same action opens it again when needed.
One of the most important qualities of these concealment systems is reducing visual and auditory clutter. Innovation teams are working not only to clear the areas above and below worktops but also to quieten noisy kitchen equipment such as extractor hoods.
People have embraced outdoor socialising, in summer and winter alike. As the food and drink sector responds to this demand, kitchen manufacturers have also been prompted into action, with the results visible at EuroCucina. The trend for preparing and cooking food outdoors with friends leads naturally to outdoor kitchens designed for verandas, back gardens and terraces.
The key is to make the kitchen as compact and multifunctional as possible. The watchwords are “compress”, “reduce” and “shrink”. Outdoor kitchens following this direction will take the form of single-wall models no more than two or three metres long. Multifunctionality is especially evident in appliances, with designs offering washing, cooking, cooling and storage functions.
Combining colour, pattern and raised texture, kitchens with three-dimensional surfaces continue the approach of appealing to the senses. Pleasing to the eye and inviting touch, these surfaces extend from walls to worktops and cabinet doors. Grooves, reliefs and ribbed finishes bring effects to horizontal and vertical planes. The trend continues the interest in spaces that invite tactile engagement, driven by a desire to connect with nature, its quietness and dignity, and to feel part of nature and life.
This trend explores how materials and colours combine. In place of an all-white kitchen, a rich mix of materials meets warm, expressive colours to create the kitchen of the future. Ranging from honey tones to dark browns and from striking marble to rose gold, this atmosphere introduces an era of sophisticated, soft maximalism.
