1. 86 CASA VOGUE INDIA 2016 www.vogue.in
MARCOCRAIG
1M
Mid-April this year, when I meet Spanish de-
signer Patricia Urquiola, 55, for the first time,
she’s beleaguered by a flurry of fans at the fa-
mous Spazio Pontaccio in Milan’s Design dis-
trict, Brera. She’s there to launch a new capsule
collection, Credenza, a collaboration with the
graphic designer Federico Pepe.
Architect and product designer, Urquiola is a
name associated with some of the best brands in
the world—Georg Jensen, Louis Vuitton, Pan-
erai, Gianvito Rossi. Now, as the art director of
Italian furniture brand Cassina, she is presiding
upon objects that celebrate her love for elegant
functionality. After designing Lodha Group’s
premier property in London, she is pegged to
design their new apartment block in Mumbai.
Ask her for her opinion on trends for this year
and you realise you’ve stepped on a conversa-
tional landmine. She dismisses the idea of
‘trends’ as just a tool to communicate with—
something that doesn’t exist in reality. “When
you are designing something you never think
about whether your work fits in with a trend.
With Molteni a few years ago, we realised that
society is moving in a particular direction, and
that is what informs the design. It is not
the other way around.” The ‘anti-trend’
Urquiola shares with Casa Vogue the
rules she follows:
Mistress
of design
PATRICIA
URQUIOLA
may be
vociferously
averse to
predicting
trends, but
there are some
that never go
out of style.
She tells RUE
KOTHARI her
four golden
rules of design
I N S P I R E
It’s all about simplicity: Tuning into the
growing movement for what has been termed
New Simplicity, Urquiola acknowledges that
this is possibly the biggest challenge for all
designers—a purity of approach.
“At Cassina, we wanted to
take traditional pieces and
simplify them, using dif-
ferent moulds and mate-
rials. It’s so delicate
that it wasn’t easy.
When I was working
with Georg Jensen,”
she says of the deco-in-
spired desk accessories
she made for the Danish
brand early this year,
“we were given the space
to play with porcelain,
evolving the way we built
the mould. They had
spent decades learning
how to work with steel.
We simply wanted to
coat it in copper, but the
whole idea was so com-
plex that we had to re-
think the entire process—
rebuild the machine.”
‘Antibodi’ lounge
chair, Moroso
‘Credenza’ room
divider, Spazio
Pontaccio
Patricia Urquiola,
at her studio, is
currently the
art director
of Cassina

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Collaborate, collaborate,
collaborate—for a richer
approach: Urquiola is enthused by all the pos-
sibilities. “Art direction requires you to be more
generous; you have to go deep inside the com-
pany to understand it first, before you can im-
prove, change the rules and grow,” she says.
She’s all about the collaboration—and the ros-
ter of brands who’ve enlisted her reads like a
who’s who in contemporary design. “Yes, I
partner with a lot of different companies. I’m
very easy to collaborate with,” she laughs.
“For Cassina, we dug into their heritage to
rediscover the Utrecht chair,” she says of the
iconic piece design by Gerrit Rietveld in 1935.
This revival, in collaboration with Bertjan Pot,
recovered in sculptural block print, is part of
Urquiola’s first collection with Cassina, which
also includes pieces by Ora Ito, Philippe Starck
and the late Zaha Hadid. “Bringing together the
historic piece with a new designer and
understanding that we can create
new value in a humble and hu-
man way is the future of cre-
ativity. It’s all about a global
market with local values,
or a local market with
global values.”
Let the past dictate the
present: After more than
two decades in the industry,
Urquiola has formed a way
of working that resonates
with her emotionally.
Drawing deeply from
her personal heritage, the Spaniard is inspired
by memories of growing up as part of a large
family, little vignettes like her mother’s
love of English designer David Hicks.
Her formal design education at the
hands of Achille Castiglione and
godfather of modern Italian design
Vico Magistretti honed her vision and
her skills. “There needs to be a good bal-
ance in what you do—in
your research,
attitude, values.
And if this is well
melded with the
possibilities that so-
ciety and technology
offer you—you can
make a project with
real soul,” she says.
Embrace technology
to bring democracy in
design: As an architect too,
Urquiola is fascinated by the
way spaces are evolving—
how offices are no longer
the prisons of the past, but
instead better organised, to
allow workers to thrive. “If
you want to play with an old item and reimagine
it with new materials, technology allows you to
do this, to make it better, more sustainable.”
“All of this helps me to grow,” she says, of the
search for design’s next revolution. “What you
do today is the beginning of something new,”
she says. With her upcoming projects for Mo-
roso, and a new mid-range Giulia hotel in Mi-
lan, she’s advocating for more democracy in de-
sign, building projects that are not just for the
luxury consumer.
Her Bandas collection for Italian brand
Gan in 2015 took her to a village in south
India, where craftspeople have perfected
a unique kind of needlework. Inspired by
the embellished fabric, she created cus-
tomisable runners fitted with Velcro, that
could be added to any upholstery. It was in-
novation employed for the best means:
to update the modern home
and bring commerce to the
less fortunate. ■
PLANET
URQUIOLA
Playful and poetic,
Urquiola’s signature
style is also pragmatic
and functional. We
look at few trends that
have dominated her
repertoire
PLAYING
WITH SHAPE
Sinuous and at
times whimsical
shapes dominate
her designs. It
was her sculptural
‘Fjord’ chair for
Moroso in 2002,
now included in
MoMA’s permanent
collection, that made
her a big-league
designer. Later, her ‘Fat-
Fat’ collection for B&B
Italia brought out the
voluptuousness
in design.
BOLD APPROACH
Away from the
monotony of greys,
she’s known for her
generous use of bright
colours, prints and
textures. Her Lana
Manga collection for
Gan Rugs exemplifies
this in a riot of colours
and sizes.
EMBRACING
TRADITION
Her penchant for
patchwork and weaves
often shows up in her
work. From macramé
chairs to crochet rugs,
her love for woven craft
has stuck with her since
her 2004 ‘Flo’ chairs
for Driade.
Urquiola collaborated
with Bertjan Pot in
reviving the ‘Utrecht’
chair for Cassina
Emu’s ‘Re-Trouvè’
chairs combine ’50s
curvy design with
modern production
The ‘Bandas’
chair modules by
Gan Rugs were
handcrafted in India
‘Tropicalia’
armchair, Moroso