Sanlorenzo Arts at Milan Design Week 2026 Presenting UN-Material

Sanlorenzo returns to Milan Design Week 2026 with UN_Material, a striking new design installation by renowned architect and designer Piero Lissoni, further reinforcing the shipyard's long-standing commitment to innovation, architecture and contemporary design.

Presented as part of the INTERNI MATERIAE exhibition at the historic Cortile del '700 of the Università degli Studi di Milano from 20 to 30 April 2026, the installation marks the next chapter in Sanlorenzo's evolving dialogue between yachting, design and culture.

Inspired by SHE (Sanlorenzo Heritage), the shipyard's groundbreaking concept yacht that seamlessly combines timeless craftsmanship with advanced technology, UN_Material reimagines the yacht not as a finished object, but as an immersive architectural experience.

Rather than presenting a conventional vessel, the installation reconstructs the yacht's volume through a sequence of full-scale cross-sections, inviting visitors to walk through its structure and discover its spatial composition from within. Semi-transparent fabrics combined with delicate metal outlines create an ethereal visual effect, allowing the yacht's silhouette to gradually emerge and dissolve through changing light and perspective.

Elevated above a platform that evokes the waterline and enhanced by moving visual elements, the installation transforms the yacht into a dynamic exploration of form, perception and space, blurring the boundaries between architecture, art and marine design.

"We worked on the theme of transparency by taking this boat, SHE, as our starting point and dematerialising it," explained Piero Lissoni, Art Director of Sanlorenzo and founder of Lissoni & Partners. "We created 'slices of the boat' using a semi-transparent fabric that, by day, appears like a light cloud, while at night it becomes a true apparition. The dematerialisation of SHE thus becomes the idea of a dream."

More than an installation, UN_Material signals a broader evolution of the Sanlorenzo brand. It reflects the company's ambition to position itself beyond yacht building, embracing design as a cultural language that extends into architecture, craftsmanship and artistic expression.

The installation also forms part of the celebrations marking the tenth anniversary of Sanlorenzo Arts, the brand's cultural platform dedicated to fostering dialogue between art, design and innovation. Over the past decade, Sanlorenzo Arts has developed into an international programme encompassing exhibitions, institutional collaborations and site-specific installations, reinforcing the shipyard's vision of positioning yachting within a broader cultural landscape.