Moroso’s pastels and Diesel Red palette unveils an intriguing design language

With a legacy that dates back to 1952, Moroso, the contemporary furniture design company has always followed a brand ideology that emphasises on the beauty of design. Founded by Agostino Moroso, with his wife, Diana, the duo extends an artisanal approach to product design and manufacturing, creating a unique niche in the industry with their product quality, innovation, and creativity. Post Moroso's showcase of two furniture designs, Square and Pebble Rubble, created in collaboration with Jonathan Olivares and Front Design, respectively at Milan Design Week 2022, the brand returns to the design fair with an even more extensive display of the ‘unmistakable Moroso style.’ During Milan Design Week 2023, at Fuorisalone, Moroso presented two appointments— ‘Moroso: the historic showroom’ designed by Studio Urquiola and 'Diesel Living with Moroso' a pop-up in collaboration with Diesel.

A new face for Moroso's historic showroom

Inviting visitors into the brand’s world, Patricia Urquiola transforms the historic showroom of Moroson at 8/10, Via Pontaccio into a familiar domestic environment. With delicate nuances of the interiors, in perfect expressive combination, Urquiola’s design creates a new scenographic narration—a renewed visual impact that enhances the furnishings on display. The spaces have been shaped to emphasise light, making the interiors more welcoming and dynamic. The removal of pre-existing superfetations and the focus on the large windowed drum creates a luminous and evocative atmosphere, making the architecture an integral part of the installation. It is an immersive experience, encouraging visitors to sit down and experience the Moroso collections through refined settings of contemporary living. The project is also environmentally sensitive, starting with the use of natural clays by HD Surface covering the walls of the entrance and the first floor, and the elegant carpet tiles designed by Urquiola for Tarkett on the floor of the large central hall.

Talking to STIR, Urquiola shared, “For me, Moroso is a place of friendship, a place that is connected with a lot of my stories, and a place that was defending me when I was just a young designer. This winter, I did the Moroso showroom in New York, in clay colour. These colours for me are very connected with Patrizia (Moroso), it's like our canvas. Then we decided to do the showroom here in Milan in the same way. We did a new disposal of the space using this clay colour as a base, and then we looked at the pieces we had done in time. Sustainability has to do a lot to create different and new durabilities even inside the company. We changed the shape and other things to give them a new attitude, but obviously by keeping our palette of colours and materials.”

Along with Urquiola redefining the interiors of the Moroso showroom, the brand also unveiled new collections and products at the design week. Within the premises of the concept of ‘a wonderful interaction between different languages,’ the 2023 products became skilful contamination between past and future, between industry and craftsmanship, between design and artistic expression. The Rows Collection by Patricia Urquiola has a minimalist design with geometrical linear forms and clear-cut symmetries, expressing a refined artistic concept. The curved milled edge running the length of the surface is inspired by the Nature Morte of Amédée Ozenfant, a French writer and painter who founded the Purism movement. The collection includes a series of storage furniture and tables. Revising the Lowland and Lowseat, two seating systems designed by Urquiola for Moroso in 2000, Mr Loveland and Mr Loveseat of 2023 take birth. Mr Loveland upholstered system is coherent with the original design with soft seats and backrests. However, the tubular steel has been replaced by solid wooden bases. Mr Loveseat adorns a more intense revisit with the solidity of the sofa base being transformed into a lighter leg, tapering out almost to nothing and captivating a lightness.

The Pheaby chair by Urquiola has an unusual antagonism between artisanal design and industrial thought, balanced through the designer’s efficiency in resolving structural components which resolve itself in the pure structural efficiency of the components. The Theo coffee table by Urquiola becomes a reinterpretation of the early avant-garde school of the 20th century. Defining the coffee table, the official release states, “The construction borrows from the principles of neoplasticism by projecting a mini-architecture in scale. The wall becomes a partition used to break up the space, separate and reduce it to an abstract geometric sign before putting it all back together in a balanced play between full and empty, and positive and negative. The result is a new structure with a glass top, through which our eyes and the light, can traverse and penetrate the space within.” A new upholstered chair extends the series of the dining armchair Getlucky, designed by Urquiola for Moroso in 2020.

Mangiafuoco, or Fire-eater is a project by the design duo Zanellato/ BortoRo for Moroso. The collection of coffee tables and centrepiece trays are ordinary copper objects coated with vitreous powders that take on unexpected splendour and startling colours when fired at high temperatures, leaving the metal intact. Elena Sanguankeo’s The 7 Playds was first presented by Moroso in 2019. In 2023, four new updated versions have been released. The 7 Playds explores the manual technique of loom weaving, and experiments with the use of embroidery, floating threads, patchwork and selvedges, in a modern design light.

At design week this year, Moroso also launched their new textile collection, Forest Wandering. The fabric collection offers the possibility to transform chairs and upholstered items into refined natural landscapes. “With a decorative approach reminiscent of Impressionism, Patrizia Moroso perfects the work begun with the Front designers in parallel with the development of the Pebble Rubble system. With Forest Wandering, this effort extends to the search for new textile structures, exploring in depth not so much the colours as the tactile and material possibilities,” states the official release. The collection does not represent nature itself, but the personal, private relationship each of us has with it.

At Fuorisalone, Ron Arad and More-So also presented a preview of the Matrizia sofa. At 'ill at ease’— an itinerant happening halfway between an extravagant living room and an art exhibition by some of the industry's most acclaimed artists— there were digital creations and design works including Matrizia, in collaboration with Studio Leggero and curators Luisa Ausenda and Caterina Taurelli Salimbeni.

Diesel Living with Moroso

Taking over the prestigious urban space of Spiga 26, the creative hub developed by Hines, Moroso created a stage for Diesel Living’s return to Milan Design Week. Diesel Living with Moroso reinterpreted the space as a pop-up showroom with a 360-degree representation of the Diesel style, summed up in the surreal and unexpected window takeover, featuring the iconic Diesel Red. The window displays the most recognisable designs from the Diesel Living collection, fabricated in monochromatic red and arranged in a fun-house style with additional furniture tableaus set on the walls. Displayed at the pop-up are the Wood Wave collection, the High Cloud sofa, Nebulone coffee tables, and The Diesel Living with Lodes lighting collection.

STIR’s coverage of Milan Design Week 2023 showcases the best exhibitions, studios, designers, installations, brands, and special projects to look out for. Explore Euroluce 2023 and all the design districts—5Vie Art and Design, Brera Design District, Fuorisalone, Isola Design District, Tortona District, and Milano Design District—with us.