Cassina headquarters renovation by Patricia Urquiola’s hands

Dec

DEC

Cassina headquarters renovation by Patricia Urquiola’s hands

Designer Patricia Urquiola has overhauled Cassina’s 1940s headquarters in Meda, northern Italy, to include a wall of plants and a cylindrical meeting space encased in metal panelling.

The Brianza area has always been an important centre for furniture production, sales and management of the Cassina brand, mainly due to the fact that this long established furniture area offers interesting potentiality for growth and development thanks to the specific competences which are rooted here.

Patricia Urquiola, Cassina Art Director, wanted to give value to the industrial character of the site, inaugurated at the beginning of the 1940s, restoring the entrance courtyard, creating a representative welcome area and developing new communal areas.

The objective was to allow the true essence of the headquarters to transpire bringing it back to life in its purest form. Stylistic details and the use of colour particularly characterise the project, for example, with the use of perforated aluminium panels to create new forms and a contemporary air.

They modernised the original stone structure and its subsequent extensions by restoring the entrance courtyard, adding a welcome area and developing new communal spaces for employees. For the main communal area, Urquiola chose a mix of pastel-hued armchairs and sofas to create two lounge set-ups on either side of the space.

These include well-known pieces by Cassina collaborators, including LC2 sofas by Le Corbusier, low Refolo tables by Charlotte Perriand and 1949 side tables by Piero Lissoni.