ADCdesigns: Furniture Designer Patricia Urquiola

Patricia Urquiola was born in Oviedo (Spain) and lives and works in Milan for more than 20 years. Urquilola is a Spanish architect and designer. She attended the School of Architecture of Madrid Polytechnic and Milan Politechnic where she graduated in 1989 with Achille Castiglioni.

In 1991 she started working for the furniture company de padova in milan, heading the product development office, where she also designed her first furniture items (together with vico magistretti) between 1993 and 1996 she opened an associated studio with two friends, and was engaged in architectural design, showrooms, restaurants and franchising. In 1996 she became head of the Lissoni Associati design group. Skip forward a few years in 2001 she opens her own office in Milan, working on product design, architecture, installations and concept creation. Some of her products are permanently exposed at the MoMA in New York, as well as other museums.

In recent years, she has received numerous awards including A&W Designer of the Year and Design Prize Cologne, she received the Red Dot Award and the Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Awards. Personal exhibitions on her work have been shown all over the world. She is currently conducting her professional activity in her own studio in Milan in the field of design, exhibitions, art direction, and architecture.

Amongst her last projects: the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona, the W Resort & Spa in Vieques (Puerto Rico), the boutiques of Gianvito Rossi, the showroom of Flos and Moroso in London and the interiors of the fashion fair Pitti Uomo 2010 (Spadolini Pavillon) in Florence.