This is one dynamic, talented and prolific designer! You may not initially be able to pronounce her name (er-kwi-ola) but once you start researching what she has designed you will remember her name.
Born in Spain, Patricia now lives and works in Milan running Studio Urquiola – her design firm that focuses on exhibitions, art direction and architecture. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Madrid in 1989. In 1991 Patricia designed her first commercial pieces of furniture in collaboration with Vico Magistretti and for the last two decades, she has continued to create pieces that are both highly imaginative yet functional. What makes her work very desirable is that her pieces sell for whatever vendor she has designed for – vendors like Kartell, Driade and B&B, Alessi, De Padova, Flos, Molteni and Artelano. Patricia is quite the who’s who of Italian furniture manufacturers.
In interviews, Patricia says she is still not sure after all these years how she actually arrives at a finished product. In once case she states, “All the little answers to the questions I ask give you a sense of the product. The mood of the piece is what people catch, I just flow with the river and try to do products that are sincere.”
Some of this designer’s pieces are on permanent display at MOMA and other international museums. One of her many awards is the Medalla de Oro al Merito en Las Bellas Artes, which she won in both in 2010 and 2011, and in 2012 she was nominated as Designer of the Year.
Several of her products are proudly displayed in our Kartell gallery including the Comeback Chair (which garnered the Good Design Award in 2014), the Foliage Chair, and the Usame End Table.
Cover image courtesy of B&B Italia.
