Patricia Urquiola Fat

Spanish-born, Milan-based architect Patricia Urquiola doesn’t lack for commissions these days, and, unlike the work of many other high-concept architects, her projects tend to get constructed, envelope-pushing though they sometimes are. And when she’s not imagining covetable creations for contemporary furniture houses — including B&B Italia, Driade and Cassina, where she was named art director in 2015 — Urquiola makes headlines by designing some of the world’s most aesthetically ambitious hotels, such as 2016’s Il Sereno on Lake Como in Lombardy, Italy.

Born in Oviedo, in northern Spain, Urquiola grew up in a family that valued creativity. Everyone in the house, she says, talked and cared about design. She fondly remembers her mother going to London in the 1960s and ’70s and coming back home with a Mary Quant this, a David Hicks that. When it came time to go to university, Urquiola decided that her place was architecture school, first at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and then at the Polytechnic University of Milan, where she completed her design thesis — a felt carpet with a panel that connected to a home’s electricity source and telephone line so that you could plug, say, a table lamp and your phone into it — under the direction of legendary Italian industrial designer Achille Castiglioni.

Today, Urquiola has become a go-to when it comes to avant-garde product, hospitality and retail design, working with such blue-chip international furniture, fashion and hotel companies as Alessi, Baccarat, Salvatore Ferragamo, Kvadrat, Mandarin Oriental, Panerai, Rosenthal, W Hotels and Louis Vuitton, among many others. Her residential projects, meanwhile, though few and far between, stretch from such far-flung locations as Punta del Este, Uruguay, and Melbourne, Australia, to closer-to-home Udine, in northeastern Italy, where she designed the two-story, largely open-plan glass-and-cedar home of Patrizia Moroso, creative director of the family-owned design company that bears her last name.

Over the course of a long-term and highly productive collaboration spanning some 20 years, Urquiola has created dozens and dozens of Moroso-branded products. A chair from her 2001 Fjord line of seating, tables and poufs for the company sits in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Moroso debuted (love me) Tender, her modular sofa system upholstered in jersey, during Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile in April of 2014.

Find Patricia Urquiola furniture on 1stDibs.

The right vintage, new or antique tables can help make any space in your home stand out.

Over the years, the variety of tables available to us, as well as our specific needs for said tables, has broadened. Today, with all manner of these must-have furnishings differing in shape, material and style, any dining room table can shine just as brightly as the guests who gather around it.

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Coffee and cocktail tables can serve as a room’s centerpiece with attention-grabbing details and colors. Glass varieties will keep your hardwood flooring and dazzling area rugs on display, while a marble or stone coffee table in a modern interior can showcase your prized art books and decorative objects. A unique vintage desk or writing table can bring sophistication and even a bit of spice to your work life. 

No matter your desired form or function, a quality table for your living space is a sound investment. On 1stDibs, browse a collection of vintage, new and antique bedside tables, mid-century end tables and more .