Moroso Presents the New Products for 2023 in New York at NYCxDesign & at Clerkenwell Design Week

This spring Moroso, after presenting the new 2023 innovations as a world premiere in Milan at the FuoriSalone, will show the new products to the US and UK markets during NYCxDesign and Clerkenwell Design Week.

In view of these exhibitions, the layouts of the New York and London showrooms will be revamped: in New York, the stars of the showcases will be the Pacific sofa, designed by Patricia Urquiola and presented in a new modular version, and Matrizia, the sofa-sculpture by Ron Arad for More-So, accompanied by Modou Collection, a collection designed by Ron Arad, made in Senegal and part of Moroso’s M’Afrique Collection.

Matrizia is the new piece created by More-So, an internal division of Moroso created with the aim of enhancing research and experimentation applied to furniture-design: an intermediary space between prototyping and industrial production that involves the development of unique or limited edition furniture and objects for an audience of enthusiasts and lovers of designer style. Matrizia, a playful fusion of the Italian word for mattress with Patrizia, takes shape in Moroso’s workshops as a sofa-sculpture, a combination of design sensitivity, innovative production processes and fine craftsmanship.

In the showcase at the entrance, next to Matrizia, there are also elements from the Modou Collection, a project designed by Ron Aradin 2019 for Moroso’s M’Afrique collection. The idea behind the structure of the seats is a tubular shape that creates the form by following a continuous curved line, which is impossible to make except by hand by very skilled craftsmen. The name, is a tribute to the blacksmith Modou who worked together with the designer in Dakar, giving him the opportunity to transpose an idea, a sketch, into a real prototype.

In the other showcase, the Pacific sofa, designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso in 2021, is transformed into a modular system with the introduction of anew element. A single central module, which can be combined from one to four times, allows the space to be configured indifferent ways and to infuse an elegantly sophisticated identity in residential environments as well as in lounge areas in the hospitality sector or luxury boutiques.

Moving towards the large open space of the new flagship store on Madison Avenue, a bright environment, open to interaction, relationship and discovery, welcomes the new products designed by Patricia Urquiola: the Rows collection, the Mr Loveland sofa and Mr Loveseat armchair, the Theo coffee tables and the Pheaby and Getlucky upholstered chairs.

Characterized by linear forms and architecturally-inspired symmetries, the Rows collection, designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso, expresses a refined artistic memory in its sophisticated, minimalist geometry. It is notable for the workmanship that is both formal and decorative, a curvilinear section of milling inspired by the still lifes of Amédée Ozenfant. The collection consists of a series of containers for use in the dining and living area, and two rectangular tables.

Lowland and Lowseat, seating systems designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso in 2000, are revived and ‘reused’ through a different approach to sustainability which enhances an existing product by transforming it into something evergreen. In the upholstered Mr Loveland system, which is elegantly consistent with the original design principle, the project involves softening the seats and backrests and replacing the steel bases with solid ash wood ones. This choice ennobles the architectural qualities of the system without abandoning, in the individual sofa as in the composition, the aesthetic qualities of sophisticated rationalist memory. It’s a language that, with Mr. Loveseat, takes on greater strength and intensity. The sofa bases turn into legs, smoothing and becoming lighter until they emerge from the body; a structural solution that gives the armchair adecisive and contemporary personality, capable of accentuating its independent character while maintaining the option of joining several armchairs in multiple configurations suitable for public and collective spaces.

Through a progressive reduction of decorative elements, the design of the Theo coffee table, designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso, revisits the thinking of the early 20th century avant-gardes. The constructive approach adopts the principles of neoplasticism by projecting a small work of architecture to scale; the wall is transformed into a septum that decomposes a volume, separates it, reduces it to an abstract geometric sign and then recomposes it in a balanced search between full and empty, between positive and negative. The result is a new structure that, thanks to its glass surface, allows the eye and light to pass through the interior space.

In the upholstered Pheaby chair, designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso, the constructive approach is expressed through an unusual contrast between handcrafted design and industrial thinking, resolved in the maximum structural efficiency of the constituent elements. The legs, resting closer to the idea of a carpenter’s trestle than the leg of a chair, support a soft, rounded seat that is completely devoid of edges. Pheaby thus makes the most of the characteristics of its materials, revealing its versatility, lightness and comfort.

Getlucky is an upholstered chair that expands the family of the table chair of the same name, designed in 2020 by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso. The backrest, which was a distinctive element of the original design, is adapted to the new solid wood structure. Comfortable, generously proportioned and cosy, the Getlucky chair is a complement that can give a dining, residential or public environment a strong contemporary edge.

In London, for Clerkenwell Design Week, the UK’s leading independent festival celebrating design and architecture through a series of events, conferences, workshops and installations in the city’s various showrooms, the set up at the showroom on Rosebery Avenue will feature solid, vibrant colours in perfect chromatic harmony with Moroso’s flagship stores in Milan and New York.

On stage in the main space are the new collections Rows, Mr Loveseat, MrLoveland, Theo and Pheaby, designs by Patricia Urquiola, accompanied by the new textile collection Forest Wandering.

Forest Wandering is a fabric collection that offers the opportunity to transform seating and upholstery into refined natural landscapes. With a decorative approach akin to impressionism, Patrizia Moroso fine-tunes the work begun with the Front designers at the same time as the development of the Pebble Rubble system and which, with Forest Wandering, extends to the search for new textile structures, thoroughly exploring not so much the colours as the tactile and material potential. And it is precisely the Pebble Rubble seating system that is the star of the London showroom window display.

On Tuesday 23 May, the London showroom will host the ‘Art in Design’ talk, by invitation only, featuring Cajsa Carlson, Design Editor Dezeen in conversation with Timothy Shepherd, Managing Director of BGY ID, Jane Maciver, Creative Director of BGY ID, Che Blomfield, Curator, Shoreditch Arts Club and Matilde Cerruti Quara, Artist.