Cleaf celebrated its 50th anniversary at Milan Design Week 2025 with Calling the Future, a concept built around the 1970s Italian telephone box. The project unfolded across three major installations, in the Pirelli HangarBicocca, the company’s CCube showroom, and at Salone del Mobile.Milano. Each space used the phone booth as a metaphor for connection, bridging past design codes with present technology and future thinking.
A Long Table of Memory and Motion
At Pirelli HangarBicocca, Calvi Brambilla and Partners transformed the industrial space into a dramatic narrative. They placed a long, curved table under Anselm Kiefer’s The Seven Heavenly Palaces, setting up a physical line through space that mirrored the conceptual link between eras. Built with Cleaf textures, the table stretched out in front of 300 chairs, inviting visitors to sit, reflect, and participate.
Dozens of lanterns, shaped as miniature phone booths, lined the surface of the table. Their yellow hue, pulled from the original SIP booths, brought a sharp contrast to the dim setting. At the center, a DJ performed inside an oversized phone box, blending sound and presence into the space. Projections on the walls featured cartographic graphics derived from Cleaf’s materials, adding a sense of coded texture to the visual field.
Rethinking the Phone Booth at CCube
In the CCube showroom, Vudafieri-Saverino Partners reimagined the SIP phone box as a multi-functional urban shelter. The designers turned the obsolete public object into a space of interaction, both digital and human. They created four distinct shelters, each clad in Cleaf surfaces and offering a different use case grounded in today’s lifestyle.
Outdoor Pavilion functioned as an open space for shared meals, shaded or protected from rain. Sport Therapy offered a monitored environment for physical activity and recovery. Smart Office provided a compact space for calls and virtual meetings, while Acoustic Oasis created a quiet area for rest and solitude. Visitors entered the space through a lobby wrapped in graphics that recalled telephone tokens from the 70s, which gave the showroom a communal feel.
Messages for Tomorrow at Salone del Mobile
Bestetti Associati designed Cleaf’s stand at Salone del Mobile.Milano, centering the experience around a single phone box set inside a labyrinth. This structure brought visitors into a space filled with visual and audio contrasts. Inside the booth, they discovered an abstract composition of Cleaf surfaces and a vintage phone. Instead of calling someone, guests could record a message for the future using a “temporal answering machine,” linking memory to intent.
The surrounding maze represented the fast pace of city life. Noise and motion filled the edges, while the phone booth offered a space to pause and reflect. The installation drew a clear boundary between chaos and consideration, making room for tactile experience and thoughtful design.
Introducing Matrice and Nebulosa
To mark the anniversary, Cleaf also launched two new surface textures: Matrice and Nebulosa. Matrice updates the company’s earlier Matrix finish, which originated from a sandblasted larch design. The new version interrupts linear channels to create a more organic pattern. The surface appears matte, interrupted by shiny micropores that give it texture and depth.
Nebulosa, by contrast, takes its cue from the cosmos. Shiny micro-details float over a muted base, recalling clusters of interstellar dust. The surface feels smooth and soft, bringing movement through material.
A Personal Reflection on 50 Years
Luciano Caspani, President and Founder of Cleaf, reflected on the company’s history with a focus on relationships and collaboration. “Fifty years ago, my entrepreneurial adventure began,” he shared. “I had the good fortune to be born in Brianza, an area known for quality work and a pursuit of beauty.”
He credited family, colleagues, and clients for continuously pushing the company to improve. “In a globalised and ever-changing world, the only key to overcoming uncertainties lies in relationships,” Caspani said. He also pointed to his children, Barbara and Roberto, as the future of the company.
Calling the Future brought Cleaf’s past and present into clear conversation. Through public installations, surface innovation, and personal reflection, the brand marked its milestone with design built to move forward.
