Patricia Urquiola

Originally from Oviedo, Spain, Patricia Urquiola studied architecture and design at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and completed her studies at the Politecnico di Milano where she graduated under the mentorship of Achille Castiglioni. Her career highlights include Assistant lecturer to Achille Castiglioni and Eugenio Bettinelli in Milan and Paris, responsible for the new product development office of De Padova, working with Vico Magistretti, head of Lissoni Associati’s design group.
Patricia Urquiola starts each project by building an empathic connection with the user that will eventually interact with her designs, something she learned from Achille Castiglioni, establishing the “fundamental element” as he used to call, the basis of each project which always keeps her on track and accompanies her whole design process: thinking spaces or objects in relation to people. Pushing the limits of research and technology, Patricia Urquiola constantly experiments and dares to move towards better design and architecture, following her earlier mentors’ teachings such as Vico Magistretti and Maddalena de Padova. Used to confront complex processes, working with scales from micro to macro, she works with the available technology to go beyond the limits of what has been already experimented.