We recently had the pleasure of tuning into a webinar presentation from the renowned Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola. Hosted by Kurt Vander Schuur, Global Brand Director at Haworth, Ms. Urquiola spoke on the topic of designing in a virtual world.
As part of her many contributions to the design world, Ms. Urquiola has designed extensively for Haworth, serving as Art Director of Cassina since 2015. A native of Spain, Ms. Urquiola joined the discussion from her studio in Milan, Italy, where she resides.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Urquiola speak you’ll know that she speaks quickly – ideas tumbling out freely alongside a mountain of design inspiration and completed work. In addition to a selection of her studio’s past and current work, Ms. Urquiola shared a series of experiences, beginning with a first visit to Haworth, rewinding to particular sources of inspiration she’s turned to over the years, and to early memories of her very first design projects, then forward again to her and her team’s experiences working and designing together in a totally virtual way.
“Arriving at Haworth in Michigan during a cold winter, as a Mediterranean – it told me something about this company, and about the people here, who live and work throughout a long winter.”
Just as her first visit to Haworth taught her something valuable about her new design partner, the pandemic and its shelter-in-place directives has given her an opportunity to pause, and to think deeply about how she and many other people are living, working, designing during this and other times.
“This moment we are living in is so dramatic, so real, and so complex,” Urquiola said. “At this time, we are a bit like birds in our cages. And we are finding shelter in new places; our home is a shelter now, and maybe even something as simple as a face mask is our shelter.”
“When doing design, we are often in-between many things – in the design phase, in build, and on and on. Because of that, it can be difficult to focus on separating virtual from reality. During this time, we have to find ways to keep designing, because that is a part of life. To design is to find a way.”
“I remember a quote from Yoko Ono that sticks with me. She said, ‘She sat quietly, but her body was expressing a universe.’ This quote makes me think that this virtual world is helping us in this moment, but we have to understand that we must continue growing our intentions – to evolve. We must understand how important connection, in its many forms, are.”
Ms. Urquiola referenced the “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, a 1988 book by the young Italian philosopher Italo Calvino. In the book, Calvino identifies six values he felt would be important for the coming millennium. Ms. Urquiola talked about the six values – lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency – in relation to their opposites.
“Each one of these values is related deeply to its contrasting element – for example, consistency and inconsistency, lightness and heaviness, visibility and invisibility. All of these interconnections are very important to consider. It also makes me consider the connections within your mind, with each other, and with the process. We always say in the studio, ‘Enjoy the process.’”
Ms. Urquiola shared an image of her computer screen, full of several of her designers tuned into a virtual meeting together. Their experiences connecting and designing together in this way feel new.
“Somedays it feels like a jungle,” she said. “Speaking over the phone and virtually all the time is not so normal to me. A big part of my personal and professional life is sharing with my first, most immediate community. But now, it is so different. Working with designers in this way is making me give more attention to the way we’re working in this virtual world – more attention to isolation and to connection.”
Moments of solace and of solitude are now in clearer focus.
“Moments of walking near a lake, or a moment of calm having an espresso at a café – these are all important things. But, there is also an exhaustion that comes with thinking deeply about these things. We are and have to be human in this time.”
“The energy is as important as the structure beneath the relationships we build.”
If you have the opportunity to attend a presentation like this, where a designer can show their process, what they’re thinking, and how they’re designing, please do. Ms. Urquiola’s discussion was enlightening and whimsical, leaving us with a taste for more. Luckily, we have a sense that she and her team are staying busy!