Iwan Maktabi marks its first presence at Milan Design Week 2026 through two collaborations that reflect the breadth of the brand’s approach to contemporary design. One takes shape at Nilufar, where the carpet house is part of an immersive interior created with David/Nicolas and de Gournay. The other appears within Jusoor Design Collections, a Saudi-led platform that brings together designers and international brands in a broader conversation about craft, exchange, and cultural identity.
Cadence – a collaboration between David/Nicolas, Nilufar, de Gournay, and Iwan Maktabi
At Nilufar, Iwan Maktabi is part of Cadence, a bedroom environment imagined by David/Nicolas as an immersive, continuous landscape rather than a conventional room. The space is enveloped in an embroidered wall covering developed with de Gournay, derived from a drawing composed of countless parallel lines that never intersect, instead moving in sync at a measured distance. This quiet, rhythmic choreography across walls and ceiling transforms the room into a living volume shaped by controlled movement and repetition.
The same rhythm continues on the floor through a custom rug developed with Iwan Maktabi. Set on a soft sky-blue ground, delicate beige lines echo the surrounding surfaces and help blur the
boundary between wall and floor. The carpet becomes part of the architecture of the room, reinforcing an immersive sense of continuity that defines the installation. As David/Nicolas explains, “We wanted to create a room that feels alive, where lines move like a quiet choreography around you. The geometry grounds you, the movement surrounds you.
It is a space suspended between discipline and fluidity.”The room is completed by sharply defined furniture pieces that create a deliberate contrast against the softer surfaces, including rectilinear wooden forms and a deep red table that adds a sculptural note. Vintage works from Nilufar’s collection bring another layer of context, connecting the installation to the gallery’s history and creating a conversation between contemporary design and collected memory. Through Cadence, David/Nicolas and Iwan Maktabi explore the interplay of movement and structure, softness and precision, and the multitude of ways textiles carry meaning beyond decoration, transforming a simple surface into a living, experiential layer of the room.
CORA Collection by Abeer Alrabiah & Albandari Sulaiman for Iwan Maktabi presented as part of Jusoor Design Collections
The second appearance is part of Jusoor Design Collections, the flagship program of the Architecture & Design Commission under the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia. Curated by Samer Yamani and presented at the historic headquarters of Istituto Lombardo, Palazzo Brera, and Sala delle Adunanze, the exhibition is built around the idea of “Jusoor,” meaning “bridges” in Arabic. This idea embodies the connection between cultures, generations, disciplines, and material practices. Developed by Creative Dialogue with AMSY Lab, it places five Saudi designers in direct collaboration with international design brands from India, Nepal, and Spain.
Iwan Maktabi collaborates with Saudi designers Abeer AlRabiah and Albandari Sulaiman on the CORA Collection, a series of twelve seating pieces inspired by five coral species native to Saudi Arabia: Platygyra, Goniastrea, Montipora, Euphyllia, and Acropora. Each piece is designed with handwoven carpets into three-dimensional stools, echoing the rhythm, resilience, and chromatic richness of coral colonies. Three bleached pieces draw attention to the fragility of marine ecosystems, grounding the collection in environmental consciousness and personal memory. CORA Collection stands as both an artistic tribute to biodiversity and a call for preservation, demonstrating how textiles and craft can carry meaning beyond aesthetic form.
Across the collection, the careful interplay of material, form, and texture reflects Iwan Maktabi’s signature approach – centuries-old textile traditions reinterpreted through contemporary design sensibilities. In the context of the Jusoor Collection, this sensibility moves into sculptural form while contributing to a larger conversation about cultural storytelling through design. Milan DesignWeek offers an international stage for Jusoor Design Collection, where Saudi designers collaborate with global brands, showing how local identity and cross-cultural exchange can meaningfully coexist.
Taken together, these two collaborations at the Milan Design Week 2026 speak to the versatility of Iwan Maktabi’s design thinking. What ties both collaborations together is a shared belief in the craft of traditional and-knotted carpets as something active, adaptable, and still unfolding – an expression that helps define space, carry narrative, and expand the possibilities of contemporary design.
