Spanish-born, Milan-based architect Patricia Urquiola doesn’t lack for commissions these days, and, unlike the work of many other high-concept architects, her projects tend to get constructed, envelope-pushing though they sometimes are. And when she’s not imagining covetable creations for contemporary furniture houses — including B&B Italia, Driade and Cassina, where she was named art director in 2015 — Urquiola makes headlines by designing some of the world’s most aesthetically ambitious hotels, such as 2016’s Il Sereno on Lake Como in Lombardy, Italy.
Born in Oviedo, in northern Spain, Urquiola grew up in a family that valued creativity. Everyone in the house, she says, talked and cared about design. She fondly remembers her mother going to London in the 1960s and ’70s and coming back home with a Mary Quant this, a David Hicks that. When it came time to go to university, Urquiola decided that her place was architecture school, first at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and then at the Polytechnic University of Milan, where she completed her design thesis — a felt carpet with a panel that connected to a home’s electricity source and telephone line so that you could plug, say, a table lamp and your phone into it — under the direction of legendary Italian industrial designer Achille Castiglioni.
Today, Urquiola has become a go-to when it comes to avant-garde product, hospitality and retail design, working with such blue-chip international furniture, fashion and hotel companies as Alessi, Baccarat, Salvatore Ferragamo, Kvadrat, Mandarin Oriental, Panerai, Rosenthal, W Hotels and Louis Vuitton, among many others. Her residential projects, meanwhile, though few and far between, stretch from such far-flung locations as Punta del Este, Uruguay, and Melbourne, Australia, to closer-to-home Udine, in northeastern Italy, where she designed the two-story, largely open-plan glass-and-cedar home of Patrizia Moroso, creative director of the family-owned design company that bears her last name.
Over the course of a long-term and highly productive collaboration spanning some 20 years, Urquiola has created dozens and dozens of Moroso-branded products. A chair from her 2001 Fjord line of seating, tables and poufs for the company sits in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Moroso debuted (love me) Tender, her modular sofa system upholstered in jersey, during Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile in April of 2014.
Find Patricia Urquiola furniture on 1stDibs.
Glas Italy L.A. Sunset Coffee Table Ø 94cm (37in) - Patricia Urquiola - Copper
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Varedo, MB
L.A. Sunset by Glas Italia, designed by Patricia Urquiola, is a low, round coffee table with a striking interplay of color and reflection. The table features a circular top of lamin...
Metal
Glas Italy L.A. Sunset Coffee Table Ø 94cm (37in) - Patricia Urquiola - Blue
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Varedo, MB
L.A. Sunset by Glas Italia, designed by Patricia Urquiola, is a low, round coffee table with a striking interplay of color and reflection. The table features a circular top of lamin...
Metal
Glas Italy L.A. Sunset Coffee Table Ø79 cm (31.1 in) - Patricia Urquiola - Blue
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Varedo, MB
L.A. Sunset by Glas Italia, designed by Patricia Urquiola, is a low, round coffee table with a striking interplay of color and reflection. The table features a circular top of lamin...
Metal
Glas Italia Shimmer Coffee Table 120 cm (47.2 in) in Glass by Patricia Urquiola
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Varedo, MB
The Shimmer coffee table by Glas Italia, designed by Patricia Urquiola, is a captivating piece defined by its iridescent and ever-changing appeara...
Glass
Glas Italia Shimmer Round Coffee Table Ø65cm (25.6in) in Glass Patricia Urquiola
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Varedo, MB
The Shimmer coffee table by Glas Italia, designed by Patricia Urquiola, is a captivating piece defined by its iridescent and ever-changing appeara...
Glass
Glas Italia Shimmer Round Coffee Table Ø52cm (20.5in) in Glass Patricia Urquiola
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Varedo, MB
The Shimmer coffee table by Glas Italia, designed by Patricia Urquiola, is a captivating piece defined by its iridescent and ever-changing appeara...
Glass
L.A. SUNSET Table in Copper by Patricia Urquiola, Glas Italia IN STOCK
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Low round tables with tubular metal structure painted midnight blue or copper colour in a special metallic opaque finish. The top, in laminated glass, is a palette of colors on a mir...
Glass
Shimmer Oval Coffee Table SHI03 by Patricia Urquiola for Glas Italia, Quick Ship
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Boston, MA
Made in Italy. IN STOCK: Shimmer SHI03 - An oval coffee table cm 120x65xh.35 (47.24"x25.59"xh.13.78") in extra light glass. Crafted from laminated and glued glass using advanced fi...
Glass, Mirror
SHIMMER Coffee Table by Patricia Urquiola for Glas Italia
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Low tables and consoles in laminated and glued glass, characterized by a special iridescent multichromatic finish; the nuance varies according to the angle of the light source and th...
Glass
LIQUEFY Coffee Tables Designed by Patricia Urquiola for Glas Italia
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Brooklyn, NY
High and low oval-shaped tables in tempered extra light glass, with faded and irregular decoration which takes on the color and veins of marble. The surprising image changing effect ...
Glass
Shimmer Round Coffee Table SHI01 by Patricia Urquiola for Glas Italia QUICK SHIP
By Patricia Urquiola, Glas Italia
Located in Boston, MA
Made in Italy. IN STOCK: Shimmer SHI01 - A round coffee table cm ø52xh.45 (ø20.48"xh.17.72") in extra light glass. Crafted from laminated and glued glass using advanced finishing t...
Glass, Mirror
BISEL Coffee Table, by Patricia Urquiola for Glas Italia IN STOCK
By Glas Italia, Patricia Urquiola
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Collection of high tables, low tables and console, made in multi-layered and multichromatic glass, created by laminating five slabs of 5mm extralight glass each with a different colored film. The obtained glass sheets are in different shapes, shiny ground polished and “faceted” by means of unique bevels accentuating through the transparency of the glass the stunning multicolored material. The different components are then welded together in total clarity, by means of a special gluing technique, so creating very precious “furniture jewels”. Available in green or ochre finish. Patricia Urquiola was born in Oviedo (Spain) in 1961. Lives and works in Milan. She attended the School of Architecture of Madrid Polytechnic and Milan Polytechnic, where she graduated in 1989 with Achille Castiglioni. From 1990 to 1992 she was assistant lecturer to both Achille Castiglioni and Eugenio Bettinelli in Milan and Paris. From 1990 to 1996 she was responsible for the new product development office of DePadova, working with Vico Magistretti. In 1996 she became head of Lissoni Associati’s design group. In 2001 she opens her own studio working on product design, architecture, installations. Amongst her last projects of architecture: Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona and W Retreat&Spa a Vieques (Porto Rico); a villa in Udine; scenography of the opera “L’incoronazione di Poppea” by Monteverdi; showroom and installations for Hermès, Gianvito Rossi, Flos, Moroso, H&M and the general concept of Pitti Immagine Firenze. She designs for the most important Italian and international firms as Agape, Alessi, Andreu World, Artelano, Axor, B&B Italia, Bart Design, Bisazza, BMW, Bosa, Budri, Chevalier Edition, Il Coccio...
Glass
