Patricia Urquiola’s Log Sofa

If you’ve ever attempted to expand your understanding of the eminently talented and omnipresent Patricia Urquiola, then you surely know about her minimalist website, which features only an Italian address, a couple of telephone numbers, and a pair of email contacts. In fact, the site’s only flourish is the lipstick red font, a small indulgence in an otherwise subtle affirmation that the designer’s work speaks for itself.

Indeed, from the updated Gothicism of the Bohemian Collection, to the tech-age homage of Digitable,to the Axor Urquiola Bathroom Suite (and these are just during the previous year), Urquiola has demonstrated an impressive versatility and flexible aesthetic. She can seemingly adapt her vision to any conceptual constraint. This tendency toward malleability is, in some measure, explained by her avowed philosophical itinerancy: “Professionally I was born in Italy, from masters like Bruno Munari, the intellectual father of the Milanese school. At the same time I consider myself very Spanish: an Asturian of Basque descent.”

Log Collection. Designed by Patricia Urguiola.

Log Sofa. Designed by Patricia Urguiola.

Log Sofa. Designed by Patricia Urguiola.

Log Chair, Orange Lacquer. Designed by Patricia Urguiola.

Log Chair Mongolian. Designed by Patricia Urguiola.

The cultural fusion might give us some insight into how the author of the whimsical and ultra-contemporary Rift ever conceived of the Log Collection for Artelano, a series of staid, solid beechwood furnishings with a marked affinity for the beautiful simplicity of Japanese joinery. Urquiola first conceived of the series back in 2008, when the Log Armchair made waves with its curved beech wood back, lithe legs, and loose backing (in leather or Mongolian goat hide). Just so, the recent Log Sofa both revives and completes the sentiment: constructed of the same solid beech wood, the Log sofa boasts similar lines, yet a somewhat more placid overall aesthetic. With a fabric backing that recalls Marcel Breuer’s iconic B35, Urquiola’s latest nicely toes the line between modern and primitive. Though the prevailing look is somewhere along a continuum from Jungle to Far East to Seattle Loft, the plush pillows and versatile fabric have softened the rough character of the original chair. Says Artelano, “The sewn details are distinctly chic with a choice of elegant fabrics borrowed from the menswear department. But the piece still retains the ‘me-Tarzan character’ of the very first ‘Log’ armchair, with its structure in solid wood and rough-hewn stocky figure.”

Via Dezeen.