Lecture Series: Patricia Urquiola | In Conversation with Patricia Urquiola
In Conversation with Patricia Urquiola:
Working across different scales and disciplines, Patricia Urquiola’s career spans from architecture to design, art, curatorship, art direction ,and strategy consulting. Pushing the limits of research and technology, she constantly experiments and dares to move towards better design and architecture, following her earlier mentors’ teachings such as Achille Castiglioni and Vico Magistretti.
Empathy, life-long research, changing perspectives, experimentation, and constant dialogue have traced her professional path, along which she always kept in mind the essential relationship between spaces, objects, and the final user. Creating links between craftsmanship and industrial research, heritage, and innovation, Patricia Urquiola also drives companies she works with to upcycle once-waste material and re-imagines entire processes leading to change and evolution.
In her lecture, she will explain how her practice has evolved and expanded over the years and how her work not only deals with products and architectures, but also explores the possibilities about the future of mobility, workplace, and production cycles.
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Patricia Urquiola studied architecture and design at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Technical University of Madrid) and completed her studies at the Politecnico di Milano (Technical University of Milan) where graduated under the mentorship of Achille Castiglioni. In Spain, she was awarded the Golden Medal for Merits in Art and received the Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic. In 2001 she founded her own studio where she specialised in industrial product design, architecture (hotel trade, retail, homes, exhibitions and installations), art direction and strategy consulting.
Patricia Urquiola has been the Creative Director of Cassina since 2015 and works with important design companies, including Moroso, Driade, Flos, GAN, Andreu World, Glas Italia, Kettal, Kvadrat and international groups such as Haworth, BMW, Boeing, Louis Vuitton, Missoni, Mandarin Oriental Hotels, Four Seasons, Marriott Group, Starbucks, Ferrari and Swarovski.
She has been named Designer of the Year by Wallpaper, Elle Decor International, AD España and Architecktur und Wohnen among other magazines.
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The UTSOA Spring 2021 Lecture Series will be presented digitally through Zoom and will be live-streamed on the Texas Architecture YouTube channel. All lectures will take place at 12:30 PM unless noted otherwise.