Design Takes the Fore at Salone del Mobile

MILAN — The soon-to-launch Expo 2015 gave the annual Salone del Mobile here an extra shot of caffeine. Never mind that the Expo fairgrounds outside Milan still resemble a building site with clusters of portable toilets, cranes, chain link fences and still-drying paint. Expectations remain high that the long-awaited Expo will boost food, farming, agriculture and nutrition-related businesses — not to mention the Italian creative industries — for years to come. “The international business world will be in one place this summer — Milan,” declared Christopher Prentice, the British ambassador to Italy, during a preview of the U.K. pavilion, which features a giant metal beehive designed by the architect Wolfgang Buttress. Prentice pointed to the 14 billion pounds, or $21 billion, benefit to the U.K. economy following the 2012 London Olympics, and said Britain has big plans to help Milan “take Expo to a global business audience” even after the event wraps up later this year. As for the glaringly unfinished state of the fairgrounds — Expo is set to open on May 1 — Prentice said he was confident that “Italy will deliver,” adding that the Salone, the world’s largest design event of its kind, was proof the country remains a creative

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