Since founding her eponymous model in 2018, the Milan-based, Colombia-born designer Natalia Criado has been creating a physique of labor that reads as each practical object and sculpture. Identified for her tableware wrought in silver-plated steel – usually articulated by means of uncanny, surrealist gestures, similar to a pair of teapots conjoined on the spout – she creates items that carry a palpable symbolic cost, at instances drawing on themes as disparate as private reminiscence or her analysis into pre-Columbian ceramics and objects.
To pair that esoteric sensibility with a home like Laboratorio Paravicini – the Milanese ceramics model run by Costanza Paravicini and her three daughters, Benedetta, Margherita and Bona, recognized for his or her deftly hand-illustrated ceramics – looks like a bridge throughout dimensions. ‘I had been conscious of their work for a while, and what drew me in was not solely the craftsmanship, however the construction behind it, a family-run studio largely composed of girls,’ Criado says.
(Picture credit score: Marco Dabbicco)
The collaboration has resulted in a brand new tableware assortment, ‘Metalia’, which brings Criado’s metalwork into dialogue with Paravicini’s craft-led follow. Their joint presentation, titled ‘The Invisible Desk’, runs from 21-26 April 2026 at Laboratorio Paravicini’s by way of Nerino workshop. Wallpaper* sat down with Criado to debate her collaboration with Laboratorio Paravicini, her evolving relationship with ceramics,and what she’s most excited to expertise throughout Milan Design Week 2026.
Salone del Cell 2026: in dialog with Natalia Criado
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of the artist and designer)
Wallpaper*: Laboratorio Paravicini’s work is deeply rooted in a Milanese sensibility – the studio is predicated within the metropolis’s medieval centre, the place Costanza Paravicini additionally raised her household. How did you have interaction with that context?
Natalia Criado: Milan has this duality, it’s extraordinarily quick, very industrial, however on the similar time deeply rooted in custom and craft. Working with Paravicini allowed me to interact with that slower, extra intimate facet of town. It felt like stepping right into a lineage somewhat than ranging from zero. As somebody who has adopted Milan as dwelling, it grew to become much less about referencing town, and extra about collaborating in it.
‘Milan has this duality, it’s extraordinarily quick, very industrial, however on the similar time deeply rooted in custom and craft’
Natalia Criado
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of the artist and designer)
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of the artist and designer)
W*: Prior to now, you’ve labored largely with steel – how did you strategy translating that follow into Laboratorio Paravicini’s ceramic language?
NC: My relationship to ceramics really precedes my work in steel, so there’s at all times been a sure sensitivity there. Ceramics carry an inherent fragility, each bodily and symbolic. Reasonably than translating my steel follow immediately, I approached it as a dialogue. The steel parts grew to become nearly protecting, buildings that maintain, body, and even protect the ceramic items. It was much less about imposing one materials onto one other, and extra about making a stability between energy and delicacy.
(Picture credit score: Marco Dabbicco)
W*: Are you able to stroll us by means of the totally different items within the assortment?
NC: The gathering consists of a sequence of ceramic plates by Laboratorio Paravicini, developed in dialogue with my design language, alongside steel parts that I created. The steel works nearly as a protecting construction, encasing and framing the ceramics, responding to their inherent fragility. On the similar time, it doesn’t conceal them; it accentuates their delicacy and floor. There’s a rigidity between the 2 supplies, energy and vulnerability, the place each bit exists each as a practical object and as a sculptural composition.
(Picture credit score: Marco Dabbicco)
W*: The gathering might be offered as a part of an set up titled ‘The Invisible Desk’. What can guests anticipate to come across?
NC: The set up is just not meant to current a desk within the conventional sense. It’s extra of an environment, one thing barely disorienting, the place the thought of the desk is recommended however by no means absolutely outlined. Objects seem nearly suspended, disconnected from a hard and fast construction. It invitations guests to query what a desk actually is, whether or not it’s a bodily object, or one thing constructed by means of interplay, reminiscence, and ritual.
(Picture credit score: Marco Dabbicco)
W*: Tableware is inherently tied to ritual and gathering. Did you think about a particular form of desk or second whereas designing these items?
NC: I wasn’t considering of a particular desk, however extra of a situation. One thing barely suspended, nearly intangible, a desk that exists extra as a psychological or emotional house than a bodily one. The items had been designed with that rigidity in thoughts: between presence and absence, use and contemplation.
‘The items had been designed with that rigidity in thoughts: between presence and absence, use and contemplation’
Natalia Criado
(Picture credit score: Marco Dabbicco)
W*: Do you see this collaboration as a one-off exploration or the start of an extended dialogue with ceramic work?
NC: I see it extra as a gap than a conclusion. Ceramics is a language that I really feel very related to, and this collaboration allowed me to re-engage with it in a brand new manner. I don’t assume it ends right here, it feels extra like the start of an extended dialog.
(Picture credit score: Marco Dabbicco)
W*: Except for your individual initiatives, what are you most excited to see throughout Milan Design Week?
NC: What I sit up for most is how alive town turns into. It turns into some extent of encounter, one thing that’s work, in fact, but additionally one thing rather more human. There’s a convergence of people who find themselves deeply engaged and curious, and that power is at all times extremely inspiring. I’m particularly drawn to the surprising, smaller exhibitions, conversations, moments that aren’t essentially on the primary stage however really feel extra intimate and actual
Laboratorio Paravicini, Through Nerino 8
Opening Hours
Monday-Sunday: 10am-6pm
Wednesday: 10am-10pm
