Why Hugo Toro is in the Design 100

Toro trained on two continents before setting out on his own: a first master’s in interior architecture from Penninghen in Paris, followed by a second in architecture split between Vienna and Los Angeles. That itinerant education shows in the references he draws on — Art Deco discipline, Otto Wagner’s structural clarity, Luis Barragán’s colour and mass — filtered through a French-Mexican sensibility rather than deployed as pastiche.

From his Paris studio, now some twenty strong, he has moved quickly from private interiors to hospitality landmarks: the Michelin-starred restaurant PUR’ on Place Vendôme, a widely admired reimagining of Rome’s La Minerva for Orient Express, and a growing footprint in Miami and New York. A parallel practice in painting and sculpture — including a solo exhibition at Perrotin — suggests a studio still finding the edges of what it wants to be, which is exactly why this index catches him now rather than later.