This article is part of our Design special report previewing Milan Design Week.
Few gallerists in the contemporary design sphere have the singular vision of Nina Yashar, 67. Ms. Yashar, the founder of Milan’s Nilufar gallery, established in 1979, and Nilufar Depot, now marking its 10th anniversary, has long been a tastemaker in the world of collectible design.
In its first two decades, the gallery was known primarily for antique carpets — Ms. Yashar’s father, who had emigrated from Iran with his wife and children in 1963, similarly dealt Persian rugs.
However, a pivotal trip to Stockholm in the 1990s, where she encountered the greats of Scandinavian furniture design, reoriented her curatorial approach. Shortly after, she mounted the 1998 exhibition “Swedish Rugs and Scandinavian Furniture,” spotlighting works by Alvar Aalto, Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen.
Eventually, Ms. Yashar expanded her focus beyond historical pieces, introducing contemporary designers into her fold and placing them in conversation with their midcentury predecessors. In 2007, she organized “Gio Ponti Translated by Martino Gamper,” in which she commissioned Mr. Gamper, the Italian-born British designer who was then just emerging, to deconstruct an entire suite of Gio Ponti-designed furniture from the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento, Italy, and reassemble it into contemporary, collagelike forms, including functional tables, benches and consoles with jigsawlike facades.
But it was the opening of Nilufar Depot — a former silverware factory transformed by the architect Massimiliano Locatelli to echo the tiered balconies of the opera house La Scala — that cemented her status as a major force in the design world. Each year during Milan Design Week, the Depot is a first stop for collectors and aficionados eager to discover the industry’s next marquee name.
Ahead of Milan Design Week, we sat down with Ms. Yashar at Nilufar Depot to discuss the history of her gallery, the space’s upcoming exhibition and her perspective on the market for collectible design.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
What do you believe have been the main factors behind Nilufar’s longevity?
Following my intuition — having the courage to show what I really wanted without asking myself too many questions. People will buy, people will not buy. I always want to show something that makes people wonder, “What’s next?”
Why was Milan the right home for the gallery?
You might be disappointed to hear this, but Milan was not at all the right city for me — at least not in the first 20 years of my career. The people did not understand what I was showing. In the past, I didn’t have Milanese clients. That’s why, when I was very young, I started to do international fairs. Because I understood immediately, in the first few years of my career, that if I stayed only in Milan, I would have gone bankrupt. They were always saying, “Nilufar is too expensive.” This was the refrain for years. Now, it’s different. Milan is glowing. We have an incredible international audience. There is a new energy.
What was the city’s design and gallery scene like back then?
When I opened my gallery in 1979, there were absolutely no design galleries in Milan; it was really too early. For the first 18 years, I only dealt with antique carpets. When I discovered Scandinavian design, the trend hadn’t arrived in Europe. So for my audience in Milan, it was quite shocking.
After you held that first exhibition of Swedish furniture and carpets, what happened next?
It became a fever, buying furniture. I stopped buying carpets — I was showing intricately handwoven French-made Aubusson and Savonnerie carpets of the 1850s at the time. For the first few years, I bought only Scandinavian furniture. And then I started to deal with international midcentury.
What was your vision for Nilufar Depot when you opened in 2015?
I treated the Nilufar Depot as a platform of dialogue — a conversation between art, design and craftsmanship. It’s a cross-generational exchange in design.
In your opinion, what are the most significant exhibitions you have held here?
The two incredible solo shows created by Joseph Grima, the architect and curator. His first for me was on the Brazilian modernist Lina Bo Bardi in 2018, and the second was the “FAR” exhibition in 2019 co-curated by Studio Vedèt that showed experimental work by Odd Matter design studio, Alberto Vitelio, Linde Freya Tangelder and others. Grima designed these incredible balloon structures in the atrium of the depot. It became viral all over the world.
What do you find most interesting about contemporary designers today?
The new techniques and processes that have emerged from this latest generation. For example, one of the most spectacular techniques is 3-D printing. When I discovered the French designer Audrey Large, she was making very small objects. I told her she had to express herself in a bigger size. A few years later, she created an 8-meter-long installation that was part of the “Celestial Proceedings” exhibition in 2023. This technique brought about a revolution in the design world.
How do you usually go about developing a collection with a designer?
Designers present me with a project, and roughly 60 percent of the time, I interfere — with colors, dimensions and advice. Sometimes, it becomes a four-hands project. For example, last year, the incredible project by Christian Pellizzari that I presented in the “Time Traveler” exhibition at Nilufar gallery. He wanted me to show the chandelier in five different colors. I told him, “No, either you use the colors I choose, or I won’t show the project.” Because I was totally sure it would be successful. He followed my advice, and in the end, it was a great success.
What will you show at Nilufar Depot this year?
To mark the 10th anniversary, I’m going to present “Silver Lining,” an exhibition focused on a single material — metal — expressed through a wide array of techniques and finishes. I love the intrinsic duality of metal — how in its raw form, it gives you the sensation of resilience and strength. But once this material is in the hands of artisans, designers, artists, it becomes something much deeper, with curves, angles and different textures. There are really incredible ways metal can be expressed.
And, as always, “Silver Lining” represents the DNA of Nilufar — the conversation between vintage and contemporary. So, the exhibition will not only present contemporary metal pieces but also vintage works, including pieces from the 1970s.
How has the relationship between galleries and collectors changed in recent years, particularly with the shift toward contemporary design?
The beginning of collectors interacting with contemporary design started with the first Design Miami fair in 2005. The founders had the intuition that there were incredible collectors of art and vintage design, but they knew nothing about contemporary design. That was the starting point. After a few years, collectors began to show interest. I would say that now we are in one of the greatest moments because design has become something more — like art and fashion.
What changes have you seen more recently? Where is the market heading?
In the last five years, the economic power of design collectors has grown. We now have a global audience with significant financial potential — more people with the means and interest to engage with design. This includes a new group, not necessarily a younger generation, but a different segment of people who weren’t interested before. Take India, for example. I was just in Mumbai, and I’ve seen a shift. Historically, many important Indian families had no interest in contemporary design. It wasn’t part of their culture; they didn’t feel any connection to it. But now, that’s changing.
How are you feeling, in general, about Milan Design Week this year?
Every year, it becomes more difficult because the stress of the international audience is very high — they are waiting, they are expecting. “Ah, what’s the next trend that Nina is going to show?”
So every year, this thought is quite heavy. But in the end, when I started working more than 45 years ago, it was always to satisfy my heart, my vision, my emotions. I never thought about whether people would like it or not.
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