Patricia Urquiola: Between Craft and Industry

The Philadelphia Museum of Art honors acclaimed Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola with this exhibit and the Design Excellence Award.

Internationally acclaimed designer Patricia Urquiola creates cool, innovative objects for the home and office. Perhaps more than any other designer working today, she has successfully fused the artisanal and the industrial. Urquiola moves with ease between product and interior design and architectural commissions. She develops seductive shapes that are meant to be experienced, from her Nordic-inspired Fjord armchair and Openest lounge furnishings to stylish interiors for luxury hotels.

This exhibition explores a selection of her designs as well as her creative process from concept to final product. Discover how she uses personal sources of inspiration –a Japanese whisk, a broken seashell, the shape of antibodies– to imbue objects and environments with a soul.

About Patricia Urquiola

Spanish-born designer Patricia Urquiola trained as an architect in Madrid and later graduated from Polytechnic University of Milan, where she studied with influential lighting designer Achille Castiglioni. Since opening a studio in 2001, she has collaborated with Alessi, B&B Italia, Flos, Kartell, Moroso, and Haworth. In 2015 she was appointed art director of the iconic Italian company Cassina.

Urquiola has received numerous accolades and awards, including Spain’s Order of Isabella the Catholic and the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts. This November, she receives the Design Excellence Award from Collab, a group that supports modern and contemporary design at the Museum.

Buy tickets for the 2017 Collab Design Excellence Award reception and exhibition preview with Patricia Urquiola on Saturday, November 18 at 5:30 pm.