Patricia Urquiola designs Molteni’s new Tokyo flagship store

Molteni&C has assigned to Patricia Urquiola, architect and designer of international fame, the design of the new Flagship Store of Tokyo situated in the renowned Minami Aoyama district. The store is adjacent to the Nezu Museum, one of Kengo Kuma’s masterpieces.

The space of about 300 square meters, realized in collaboration with Artflex Japan, is divided into two levels and displays the latest Molteni&C collections by Patricia Urquiola, Ron Gilad, Rodolfo Dordoni, Dante Bonuccelli and Matteo Nuziati. Among the 2014 novelties for the living area are the Pass-word system, the seatings Reversi ’14, Breeze and D.2702, and the set of Chelsea armchairs. For the night area, the Sweet-dreams bed, the Gliss-Up wardrobe and the new Wing door.

Patricia Urquiola, always interested in local cultural background as lymph for her projects, rediscovered in views of the Komyo-in temple of Kyoto new perspective filters able to guarantee through modern re-elaborations contemporary effects that concern the relation between interior and exterior.

Thus was born a graphic wall 7m high made of local cedar as a filter between interior space and the rising sun. The relationship that ties Molteni&C to the figure of architect Giò Ponti is a further cue sparking interest in the rediscovery of geometries.

Patricia Urquiola grasps and reinterprets Ponti’s graphic detail, contextualizing it in the Japanese interior project for Molteni&C, creating full-height screens in stopsol glass able to separate rooms in a light manner, at the same time guaranteeing unexpected perspective effects.