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Furniture
Patricia Urquiola

In the
Hot Seat
In high demand and moving
at full speed, Patricia Urquiola
has created three new
chairs that reveal the inner
workings of her persona.
Text by Ana G. Caizares
Photography by Ramak Fazel

Ever since opening her

own studio in 2001,
Patricia Urquiola has
been in constant motion.
Not one to waste time,
she welcomes a virtually
uninterrupted stream of
clients. While enjoying
the ongoing success of
her Lowland sofa (2000)
for Moroso, she continues
to churn out new seating
systems, not only for
Moroso but also for manufacturers like Alessi, B&B
Italia, Boffi, Cappellini,
Cassina, Driade, Kartell
and Molteni. Needless to
say, architecture has had a substantial influence on her
work, but Urquiolas assertive and exuberant personality
harbours a whole gamut of traits and moods that also
make their way into her designs. Three new chairs for
B&B Italia, Moroso and Driade reveal the sources of her
inspiration and the colourful facets of her character.
Lets start with the Hollow chair you designed for
B&B Italia. Its a pretty serious-looking chair. Not
something I would have associated with Patricia
Urquiola.
Hollow is the result of a specific brief from the contract
division of B&B Italia, requesting an upholstered chair that
could eventually lead to a sofa within the same series, and

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2006

The lucid design of the Hollow chair

for B&B Italia reflects its simple
construction, which is based on
jointed hinges, as well as on the
Basque roots of Patricia Urquiola.

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which would need to have the same look as consecutive

pieces still to be designed. We started out with the idea
of a very well-proportioned, austere form. I have always
liked those skylights in buildings that seem to be sucked
in from a square base and that take on a sort of concave
shape. I thought of reinterpreting this architectural feature
and integrating it into the panels of the chair to balance
the overall severity of the design. In effect, this hollow
is the void that is needed within a square seat to make it
comfortable. Its an explicit reflection of my synthetic side,
my Basque roots. I can be very direct.

I am very contemplative. I
dream with my eyes open.
Patricia Urquiola

I like your use of the word direct, which is an appropriate description of this lucid design.
The brief called for a very symmetrical shape, and I took
the opportunity to apply my love for technique. The
structure is so simple. The
chair is made from three
identical plastic panels
with a hollow mould and a
seat that are joined by two
hinges and two legs. Thats
how the four pieces lock
together.
And then theres
Antibodi, which has
a completely different
character. Its much
more organic.
Antibodi is a completely
different story. There was
no brief involved, and the
idea came from a subject
Ive been obsessed with for
a long time: the hammock,
as the embodiment of
maximum relaxation.
Patricia Moroso wanted
to recreate the hammock
I made for Colognes Ideal House, so we made one out of
fabric petals, but the result was too haute couture, too
complicated to sell, and too expensive to make. We decided
to take the petals as the outer skin and mould them into a
more conventional shape. The resulting dress has become
the project itself, which we are developing so that it can
be easily applied to a simple structure, such as a chair or a
chaise longue. Our aim is a more economical design one
that can be repeated on an industrial scale. In short, prt-aporter rather than haute couture.

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Inspired by a hammock, the Antibodi

chair for Moroso flirts with its
spectators, oozing sensuality.

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Should we look for something Patricia-like in the

name Antobodi?
Well . . . I just had a baby, and at the studio the subject of
antibodies comes up quite often: my antibodies, my daughters . . . its wonderful to have loads of antibodies. And the
molecular structure of these kinds of cells is what I saw
reflected in the structure of the petal dress we created. We
replaced the y in antibody with an i to give the name
a more flirtatious connotation. In contrast to Hollow, this
chair exudes all the emotion and sensuality that I experience as a mother and as a woman.

My favourite? Thats like

asking a mother which
child she loves most.
Patricia Urquiola

The chair for Driade is called Pavo Real, Spanish for

peacock. Another personal reflection?
Pavo Real was inspired by the form of a specific chair that
Ive had a particular attachment to since my childhood.
It is a typical chair from the Philippines that appears in
the poster for the French film Emmanuelle. It evokes a
sense of sophistication and is
very reminiscent of the year
1970; I find it very playful
and fun. Its a fantasy of mine.
You could say it reveals my
light-heartedness, the more
frivolous side of my character.
It also has a much more
ethnic feel, like the work of
a craftsman.
Driades factory in Indonesia
allowed me to play around with the idea of handmade,
which I wanted to take to the limit or, in other words, to
industrialize an object made by hand. The material we
used is a three-dimensional braided bamboo that forms the
structure of the chair. It opens up like the fanned feathers
of a peacock to embrace the leather seat at its core.
Is that viable in terms of production and costs?
At the moment, were sort of halfway down the road with
this design. Were looking at the possibilities of producing
it in China, perhaps out of plastic to lower the price. It
could go in that direction. In that sense, the prototype is a
manifesto of how it can evolve from a handmade item into
something more.
Which is your favourite?
I really cant answer that question. Ive enjoyed so many
of them. I am very feminine in that sense; its like asking a
mother which child she loves most.
_

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2006

Made of braided bamboo and

recalling a peacock displaying its
plumage, Pavo Real is delightfully
light-hearted. Driade is exploring the
possibility of producing it in plastic
to lower the price.

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