Loro Piana HQ’s colourful transformation brings the Andes to Milan

Loro Piana tapped Argentine designer and craftsman Cristián Mohaded to create an installation at the company’s headquarters for Milan Design Week 2023. For the occasion, Mohaded has transformed the Cortile della Seta into a landscape informed by the Andes. 

Cristián Mohaded transforms Loro Piana HQ

Mohaded was inspired by Apachetas, centuries-old piles of stones that honour the spirit of the Pachamama (Mother Earth) and indicate paths and passes across the Andes, built over the centuries by travellers who carried them by hand to mark the way for anyone who would follow. 

Loro Piana and the designer both share a passion for natural materials and sustainability, and a commitment to craft and beauty. But they are also linked by a deeper connection: Mohaded was born in Catamarca, in the north-west of Argentina, the same location where Loro Piana sources vicuña, the world’s most precious and exclusive animal fibre, used across its collections.

Crafting Andes-inspired materials, shapes and textures

As part of the Milan Design Week presentation, Mohaded has created a series of furniture designs that include sofas, armchairs, a bench, tables and containers, whose forms discreetly nod to the shapes of the stones carved in wood and softened by the textured materials of the Loro Piana textiles, and ceramics in colours that reference Argentine lagoons. 

The project sees the courtyard at Loro Piana HQ transformed into a dreamscape inspired by Catamarca, featuring 12 towers that mimic the irregular, rising shapes of the Apachetas, upholstered with fabrics from old Loro Piana interiors collections, inviting visitors to ponder on the meaning of ennobling discarded materials.  

‘This project is undoubtedly another bridge of that relationship and connection between Latin America and the brand,’ says Mohaded. ‘A unique, dreamy landscape that defies the imagination of each one of those travelling souls, who travel and meet those monumental contractions in the form of towers, alive with colour and memory of a living land. In which we feel identified by each of those parts that build everything. “Apacheta” is a message to our Pachamama; it is history, it is culture, it is honesty and respect.’ 

Cortile della Seta
Via della Moscova, 33

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