The Spanish designer went off in search of the past and found it in the flourishes of the 1950s. The garden furniture collection “Retrouvé” combines romantic reminiscences such as these with the numerical control of modern production processes.

There is a form of garden romanticism that conjures up associations with respectable young ladies wearing elegant hats strolling in the bright sunshine between flower beds in the park. The tête-à-tête in the arbor and five-o-clock tea beneath the big linden tree are part and parcel of this British fantasy and nostalgia surrounded by greenery. Italy, the country where the lemons grow serves as the projection space for this longing.

In search of lost time the Milan-based designer Patricia Urquiola rediscovered style-conscious English garden romanticism: Her design for a new outdoor collection bears the name “Retrouvé” and in doing so forges a link with Marcel Proust’s famous novel “In Search of Lost Time”. As the last volume of the novel “Time Rediscovered” and indeed the name of the furniture promise, Patricia Urquiola has rediscovered long-forgotten shapes: Twists, curves, and flourishes adorned garden furniture in the 50s and accounted for the nostalgia construction principle. “I wanted to design new models that were to be seen as a reinterpretation of this old-fashioned design with a touch of humor,” she says. And she refers to the numerically controlled production process, with which “Retrouvé” is manufactured in Umbria. The collection comprises chairs, armchairs, tables, poufs, and floor vases made of lacquered pre-galvanized steel tube mesh – the seats of flat steel and extruded metal. An Italian capriccio for style-conscious romantics, a squiggle in the landscape – and a complex pattern with repeater motifs. Mass-produced, of course, with state-of-the-art technology.

www.patriciaurquiola.com
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