Muller Van Severen’s ‘Silhouettes’ Is an Ode to 15 Years of Innovation

Summary

• Muller Van Severen’s Silhouettes exhibition celebrated their 15th anniversary at Milan Design Week 2026
• Featured 15 aluminim candle holders, abstracting motifs from past works
• Highlighted themes of reduction, balance, and material clarity, reaffirming their global design influence

Muller Van Severen’s exhibition Silhouettes: Celebrating 15 Years, presented by Apartamento and Tim Van Laere Gallery, took place during Milan Design Week 2026 at Ordet. The show marked the Belgian design duo’s fifteenth anniversary by reinterpreting their signature forms into abstract, life‑size candle holders. Rather than a retrospective, the exhibition served as a celebratory pause, reaffirming their internationally recognized voice in contemporary design.

The presentation featured 15 aluminium candle holders, each abstractly referencing recurring motifs from Muller Van Severen’s past works — chairs, cabinets, lamps, vases, and sculptural structures. By reducing these archetypes to silhouettes, the duo explored the tension between recognition and abstraction. Each piece was crowned with a large colored candle, introducing a temporal dimension as the wax slowly burned, transforming the static forms into evolving compositions.

Within the context of Salone del Mobile, Silhouettes highlighted Muller Van Severen’s ongoing exploration of reduction, balance, and material clarity, while celebrating fifteen years of collaboration and influence in the global design landscape.