Patricia Urquiola is a Spanish architect and designer who moved to Milan as a student and has worked there ever since. She founded Studio Urquiola in 2001 and has been art director of the Italian furniture company Cassina since September 2015. Her work runs from sofas, chairs and lamps for B&B Italia, Moroso, Kartell and Flos to tiles, textiles, bathroom fittings and hotel interiors in Barcelona, Berlin, Rome and Lisbon.
Patricia Urquiola at a glance:
- Born in Oviedo in 1961, she studied architecture in Madrid and graduated from the Politecnico di Milano in 1989 under Achille Castiglioni.
- Spent a decade in Milan design offices, running product development at De Padova with Vico Magistretti and, from 1996, heading the design group at Lissoni Associati.
- Founded Studio Urquiola in 2001 with her partner Alberto Zontone; the team now numbers more than 100 people, and she has been Cassina’s art director since 2015.
- Designed the Fjord armchair for Moroso in 2002, now in the collection of MoMA in New York, and the Tufty-Time modular sofa for B&B Italia in 2005.
Who is Patricia Urquiola?
Patricia Urquiola Hidalgo was born on 22 April 1961 in Oviedo, in northern Spain. She began studying architecture at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, left Spain before finishing the course and completed her studies at the Politecnico di Milano, where she graduated in 1989 under Achille Castiglioni. Castiglioni steered her from architecture towards product design. ‘Castiglioni taught me the value of design back when I still believed that architecture was a superior art,’ she has said. Milan has remained her base, and her studio and team work there today.
How did Patricia Urquiola’s career develop?
From 1990 to 1992 she was assistant lecturer to Castiglioni and Eugenio Bettinelli at the Politecnico di Milano and at ENSCI, the École nationale supérieure de création industrielle in Paris. Over the same years, from 1990 to 1996, she ran the new product development office of the Milan furniture company De Padova, where she worked with Vico Magistretti. In 1996 she became head of the design group at Lissoni Associati, the studio of Piero Lissoni. Her first piece for Moroso, the Step sofa, came out in 1998, and she has designed for the company ever since. Moroso, she has said, ‘gave me credibility’ as a designer.
In 2001 she opened Studio Urquiola in Milan with her partner Alberto Zontone. The studio works in product design, architecture, art direction and strategy consulting, and its team of more than 100 people of 18 nationalities includes architects, interior designers, product and textile designers and model makers, as well as administration and press staff. Cassina appointed Urquiola art director in September 2015 and extended her role for a second term in 2021, ahead of the company’s centenary in 2027. She sits on the advisory boards of the Politecnico di Milano and the Triennale Milano museum, and from 2013 to 2015 she taught the master’s course in interior design at Domus Academy in Milan.
What defines Patricia Urquiola’s design style?
Urquiola’s work sits between industrial production and craft. Her pieces pair new materials and manufacturing methods with hand techniques such as weaving, lacing and quilting, and she works with natural and recycled materials. When she was inducted into Spain’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 2024, she set out her theory of hybridisation in her address, and the academy singled out her writing on reusing materials and on the link between nature and society.
She does not accept that sensuality and sensitivity are feminine traits. ‘People often say that sensuality and sensitivity are feminine qualities, but they are not gender specific,’ she told Elle Decor in 2010, and she has also said: ‘Tord Boontje is more sensual than I am.’ Where she does see a difference is flexibility. ‘Where women are different from men is that women are more flexible, adaptable, and able to multitask,’ she has said, adding that flexibility and adaptability are qualities she likes a lot in design.
Which furniture has Patricia Urquiola designed?
Her furniture clients include B&B Italia, Moroso, Kartell, Cassina and Glas Italia. For B&B Italia she designed Tufty-Time in 2005, a modular sofa built from a basic ottoman unit that combines with central, corner and end pieces into sofas, chaises longues and island seating. The same company makes her Bend sofa (2010), the Hollow sofas and armchairs (2016), the Husk armchair, whose shell holds soft cushions, and Canasta, an outdoor range of seating, loungers and tables woven from strips of polyethylene. The name is Spanish for ‘basket’.
At Moroso, the Fjord armchair and footstool of 2002 entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Antibodi (2006) is upholstered in triangular ‘petals’ of felt or leather that can face up for a flower-like surface or down for a flatter, quilted one. Silver Lake (2010), named after a Los Angeles neighbourhood, revisits Californian modernism of the 1950s with many-sided forms, while the Lilo armchair (2015) refers to the Scandinavian modernists of the same decade. Tropicalia (2008) is woven in coloured cord, Belt (2016) holds its upholstery together with knitted straps, and the Mafalda chairs complete the family.
For Kartell she designed the T-Table (2006), whose PMMA top alternates solid and open areas in a pattern reminiscent of embroidery, and the Comback chair (2010). Cassina makes her Rondos chest of drawers (2020) with softly rounded sides, and in 2026 the company presented her Ardys upholstered system. For Glas Italia she designs glass furniture, among them the round Shimmer tables of 2015, whose iridescent multicoloured finish changes with the angle of the light. Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades collection includes her Swing Chair (2015), inspired by handbags, with a woven seat held up by two leather-covered metal handles, and the Palaver chair, which has an oak frame, a perforated seat and back laced with about 150 cowhide straps, and folds flat.
What else does Patricia Urquiola design?
Beyond furniture she designs lighting, tiles, textiles and bathrooms. For Flos she designed the Serena table lamp (2015), whose reflector of folded aluminium is shaped like a leaf and can be angled to direct the light, and the Tatou lamp with a polycarbonate diffuser. For Foscarini she and Eliana Gerotto designed Caboche (2005), whose diffuser is made of transparent PMMA spheres set in concentric rings.
She has worked with the Italian tile maker Mutina since 2008, starting with Déchirer and continuing with collections such as Azulej, Bas-Relief and Cover, a range of large unglazed porcelain slabs. For Kvadrat she designed Sport (2023), an upholstery fabric of polyester made from plastic collected on the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines before it could reach the sea. In the bathroom she works with AXOR, where her WaterDream concept for a complete bathroom led to the AXOR Urquiola collection, with Agape on baths and basins, and with Laufen on the Sonar collection. Her portfolio also includes the Variations vases and glasses for Baccarat (2012), rugs for GAN such as Mangas (2010), door handles for Olivari and Habito, a collection she co-created for Weekend Max Mara’s autumn/winter 2022 season.
Which hotels and interiors has Patricia Urquiola designed?
Studio Urquiola’s architecture work covers hotels, restaurants, shops and showrooms. In 2010 Urquiola completed the interiors of the Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona, in the former Banco Hispano Americano building on Passeig de Grà cia. Guests reach the entrance on a suspended, illuminated ramp across a courtyard, and most of the furniture was designed for the hotel and made by Italian and Spanish manufacturers. The same year the W Retreat & Spa on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, opened with interiors by Studio Urquiola and Rockwell Group Europe. The reception was finished in reclaimed wood, and the scheme used locally recycled materials. The resort closed after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
In Berlin she designed the public spaces of Das Stue (2012), a hotel in the former Royal Danish Embassy: the lobby, restaurant, bar, pool area and library lounges. A bronze crocodile stands in the lobby, and colourful chicken-wire sculptures of a giraffe and gorillas hang in the lounge. She also designed the spa at the Four Seasons Hotel Milano (2011) and the Igniv restaurant of chef Andreas Caminada at Badrutt’s Palace in St. Moritz (2016). At Il Sereno on Lake Como she was responsible for both the architecture and the interiors of the 30-room hotel, and her studio designed its furniture, lighting and bathtubs.
Six Senses Rome opened in 2023 in Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini, with 96 rooms and suites, cocciopesto walls and travertine. In 2026 Hyatt opened Andaz Lisbon in the Baixa district, with 170 rooms and suites and interiors led by Urquiola together with Moerschel Arquitectos. In 2025 her studio also completed shops for Santoni and Gianvito Rossi in New York.
What awards has Patricia Urquiola received?
In 2011 Spain awarded her the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts and the Order of Isabella the Catholic, both presented by King Juan Carlos I, and a year earlier Oviedo named her Hija predilecta, a favourite daughter of the city. Wallpaper* named her designer of the year in 2006 and 2015, AD Spain in 2008 and Architektur & Wohnen in 2012, and she has won the Elle Deco International Design Awards many times, beginning with designer of the year in 2005. She entered the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2011, received the IIDA Titan Award in 2015 and was named interior designer of the year at the Dezeen Awards 2023. Spain’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando elected her a full member on 23 January 2023 and inducted her in October 2024, the year Italy made her a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Where can you see Patricia Urquiola’s work?
Her furniture is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Vitra Design Museum and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and her work has been shown at the Triennale di Milano, the V&A in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Design Museum in Zurich and the Design Museum in Monaco. The Philadelphia Museum of Art held her first solo exhibition in the United States, Patricia Urquiola: Between Craft and Industry, from 19 November 2017 to 4 March 2018. In 2025 she was one of five participants in The Other Side of the Hill at the Arsenale during the Venice Architecture Biennale, alongside Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley, Roberto Kolter and Geoffrey West. Her hotels and restaurants are open to guests, and the table lists the main places where her work can be seen.
| Place | City | Urquiola’s work |
|---|---|---|
| Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) | New York, USA | Fjord armchair and footstool (2002) in the collection |
| Philadelphia Museum of Art | Philadelphia, USA | Antibodi chaise (2006) in the collection |
| Mandarin Oriental, Barcelona | Barcelona, Spain | hotel interiors (2010) |
| Four Seasons Hotel Milano | Milan, Italy | spa (2011) |
| SO/ Berlin Das Stue | Berlin, Germany | public spaces (2012); the hotel becomes Sofitel Berlin Das Stue in early 2027 |
| Il Sereno Lago di Como | Torno, Italy | architecture and interiors |
| Igniv by Andreas Caminada, Badrutt’s Palace | St. Moritz, Switzerland | restaurant interior (2016) |
| Six Senses Rome | Rome, Italy | hotel interiors (2023) |
| Andaz Lisbon | Lisbon, Portugal | hotel interiors (2026) |
Patricia Urquiola – frequently asked questions
What is Patricia Urquiola known for?
For furniture and lighting designed for companies such as Moroso, B&B Italia, Kartell, Flos and Cassina, where she is art director, and for hotel interiors including the Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona, Il Sereno on Lake Como and Six Senses Rome.
Where is Patricia Urquiola based?
In Milan. She completed her studies there in 1989, and Studio Urquiola has worked from the city since 2001.
Does Patricia Urquiola teach?
She has lectured at Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Israel, the Alvar Aalto Academy in Finland and Bocconi University in Milan.
Which brands has Patricia Urquiola worked with?
Among others Agape, Alessi, Andreu World, AXOR, B&B Italia, Baccarat, Bisazza, Boffi, Cassina, De Padova, Driade, Flos, Foscarini, GAN, Glas Italia, Haworth, Kartell, Kettal, Kvadrat, Laufen, Louis Vuitton, Moroso, Mutina, Olivari and Rosenthal.
Choosing furniture, materials and lighting in the spirit of Urquiola’s work, which reconciles craft with industrial production, calls for decisions on proportion, texture and budget well before anything is bought. Find architects, interior designers and interior photographers in the PLNDesign directory.
See also:
- Charlotte Perriand: life, furniture and Les Arcs
- Arne Jacobsen: architect of the Egg chair and the SAS Royal Hotel
