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CORAL ISSUE - n° 19 - 2019 - € 10
The Art of Sailing
[ TREND SETTERS ]
CHANGE IS
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ME by Désirée Sormani
Spanish by birth and Milanese by adoption, she is one of the world’s hottest designers. Here she tells us about her career path, her love of the sea and how she made her first foray into yacht design with the Sanlorenzo SD96
Some of the products designed by Patricia Urquiola and presented at the last Milan Salone del Mobile (Design Week): from left, the Gogan sofa for Moroso, the L.A. Sunset coffee table for Glas Italia and the Hayama cabinet for Cassina
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Patricia Urquiola was born in Oviedo (in Spain) but now lives and works in Milan where she graduated in architecture under the great Achille Castiglioni in 1989. She headed the DePadova Product Development Office and also designed with Vico Magistretti. In 2001, Urquiola opened her own product design and architecture studio and now works with the leading home furnishing designer brands
ph. Massimiliano Sticca
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[ TREND SETTERS ]
The interiors of the Sanlorenzo SD96 are designed to be versatile and to deliver contact with the sea. Above and opposite: the sky lounge on the upper deck with fully-opening windows can work as a saloon, a dining area or a home cinema. Opposite, the master cabin. There is also a glass wall with the Liquefy motif aboard
at Madrid Polytechnic to Milan. “I am one of those people who always has to break out of their comfort zone at a certain point….I was in Madrid, everything was going well but I decided to transfer. Change is very much a part of the creativity you carry around inside you. You get to see how things look from another point of view. Sometimes you feel the need to do that without knowing why. You might fail. You are taking a risk, but you still do it. I chose industrial design and fell in love with the Castiglioni way of designing. It is all Milan’s fault that I became a designer! Had I gone to Scandinavia, I would probably have stayed an architect. Travel is essential to transformation. Achille Castiglioni and Vico hen did I know I wanted to be an architect? When I was
“W
Magistrietti are responsible for my sentimental education in design
still a teenager. I was a very determined person even
and architecture. Being a woman has never stopped me. I had a
then. I was very good at maths and I had no problem
very balanced experience both in my family and in my cultural
with technical subjects. Plus I had imagination. So, naturally I started
world: roles were always shared. In that sense, it is important to
studying architecture but I didn’t give design a thought. I only became a
overcome barriers and always to do so with irony. But it is also
designer when I came to Italy halfway through my studies”, laughs Patricia
important to come to terms with your mistakes – you have to see
Urquiola, the décor world’s most sought-after architect and designer, of
them not as a defeat but as part of the creative process. If you get
her career trajectory. But architecture was in her blood as her maternal
beyond your mistakes, it gives you courage and that is a victory”.
great uncle, several cousins and a few uncles were all architects too. “My
“It is marvellous when someone comes to you with no
father was an engineer. I would have liked to do engineering as you learn
preconceptions and asks you to do something you have no idea
more. But design came easily to me, even though I am definitely losing
about, but they want to do with you. It is the greatest gift they can
that ability”. Then, Urquiola switched from the faculty of architecture
give you. My adventure in the yachting started just like that: it was a
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Above left, the Bottega Ghianda tray created by the Spanish designer is a wonderful mix of textures and colours. Right, Nouances, a felt trim, is project that starts with the recycling of waste fibres left over from wool-making. For Gan
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[ TREND SETTERS ] ph. Giulia Costa
Above, three images from the exhibition dedicated to Achille Castiglioni which Patricia Urquiola co-curated with Federica Sala (bottom photo) for the 2018 Triennale to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the great designer. Below, the Anatra (“Duck”) outdoor collection for Janus et Cie
completely new sector that I am still learning about, in actual fact. I was given that first opportunity by Sanlorenzo”, she continues. Sanlorenzo chairman Massimo Perotti personally selected Patricia Urquiola to create the interiors of the new SD96 which will premiere at both the Cannes Yachting Festival and the International Genoa Boat Show. He chose the Spanish designer because he wanted to introduce a more feminine approach to interiors into the Sanlorenzo style vocabulary. “She is the most sought-after woman in the international design industry because of her ability to marry beauty and comfort, always with a touch of irony and sensitivity,” Perotti commented. Urquiola takes up the story: “Sergio Buttiglieri (now Sanlorenzo’s style director who previously ph. stefano de Monte
worked with Driade) had been suggesting I work on a nautical project for a while but I was reluctant because I wanted to make a good debut and, more importantly, to do it with something I was passionate about. I liked the idea because I love the sea – my father was a keen sailor and I often went out with groups of friends and they were always so happy. But I was waiting for the right time to make my entrance into that milieu. As always, I also had to find the time, energy and way of doing it. Buttiglieri and I worked towards it very gradually. I always have to find the right partner when I’m working and I think Sanlorenzo is a very positive company: I hope to learn a lot with them. They put huge trust in me on this project and we have become a real family. I liked thinking in terms of spaces with different requirements. Mostly though, I loved Sanlorenzo’s desire to bring in a different perspective to the nautical world. We are residential specialists so we had a lot to do and a lot to learn. We’ll learn from our mistakes. But I like the idea of trying to open a space to the sea and letting everything outside in: the sea comes in and becomes even more real. Because I don’t see boats as beach houses: they are places where you create an inside-outside dialogue.”
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