Patri­cia Urquiola, Life Goals

She even­tu­ally became head of Lissoni Asso­ciati Design Group but left in 2001 to open her own studio, break­ing prej­u­dices along the way. For Urquiola, the impor­tance of execut­ing a project is all about embrac­ing the medium and enjoy­ing the process. She empha­sizes the ​“flow,” knowing that ​“the mood of the piece is what people catch.” She calls the evolu­tion of her work ​“a long and beau­ti­ful dance,” priding herself on having no aesthetic, but rather char­ac­ter­iz­ing herself on a strong sense of pattern, form, and mate­r­ial while never losing the human element. 

Her most famous designs include the ​‘Bend’ sofa (B&B Italia), ​‘Lariana’ bathtub (Agape), and ​‘Maia’ armchair (Kettal) which was named ​“one of the most repre­sen­ta­tive designs of our century” by Javier Mariscal at Bombay Sapphire.

In addi­tion to working with count­less manu­fac­tur­ers (B&B Italia, BMW, FLOS, Kettal, Moroso, Missoni, and Louis Vuitton…just to name a few), let us not forget Urquiola’s long list of archi­tec­tural achieve­ments. It includes luxury hotels, boutiques, restau­rants, museums, design build­ings, and private homes worldwide.

Though as if that wasn’t enough to keep her busy, this past year she took over as the Art Direc­tor for Cassina, just in time to cele­brate their 90th birth­day. First order of busi­ness will be curat­ing the company’s 90-year cele­bra­tion program, and rebrand­ing the New York show­room which gives us a lot to be excited for. It is on this creative plat­form that she designed the ​‘Gender’ armchair which she describes as being made up of two mascu­line and femi­nine, inde­pen­dent shapes that create one form. She plays with its iden­tity using differ­ent chro­matic and mate­r­ial combi­na­tions, blur­ring the gender divide of design in more ways than one.