About

About this blog:

This blog is about several kinds of mid-century Swedish weavings designed during the period of 1935-75.  These include  flatweave rugs, called in Swedish, “rölakan;” pile rugs called “flossa,” “halv-flossa” and relief-flossa; rya rugs and tapestries, in “gobelang-teknik,” and in other weave structures.  The designers who designed these rugs tended to design in all of these different kinds of rug genres.  I’ll occasionally also look back in time to give background to my mid-century focus, or to look at weavers whose design careers began earlier but who were still active during this period.

About me:

I am an architectural designer, and an independent design historian with a long-standing interest in textiles.

An interest in materials, how things are made, and the processes of making led me originally to architecture. Architectural training taught me both how to design and how to think about design as part of a larger social context.  Further training in architectural history and historic preservation led to work that involved studying buildings, decoration, furniture and objects from different historical periods.

I have studied and practiced architecture in New York and Brussels and taught architectural design in Hong Kong. My textile interests over the years had a lot to do with where I was working and/or traveling: from ’60s Marimekko (Chicago); to textiles by Voysey, Josef Frank and Alvar Aalto (Brussels); to Japanese happi coats and obi, and Chinese robes (Hong Kong/Tokyo); to Bauhaus, Anni Albers  and the Cranbrook weavers (New York); to ikat (Singapore); to African Kanga and Dutch import fabrics (Tanzania). I became fascinated with the ways the historical international trade in textiles set up design conversations between continents and countries.

Once I discovered Swedish mid-century rugs about ten years ago, I needed to know more. They were graphic, colorful, well-designed: textile counterparts to the more famous mid-century chairs, light fixtures and silver jewelry I already knew. I am fortunate to live in New York City, where there are great design libraries, a number of dealers who handle Swedish rugs, and a number of professional “rug people” who offered encouragement as I started my research on Swedish rugs.  I was prepared to start learning Swedish so I could do research, since it looked like most of the literature on these textiles had not been translated into English. Because Sweden is in the process of digitizing much of its craft history and museum collections, it also means that there are now many fascinating pieces of the puzzle to be found on-line. I have also been visiting archives in Sweden to pull out drawings and find out more about designers as I identify them.

This blog will be about what I have discovered and what I’m continuing to learn.  It is primarily about several kinds of mid-century weavings and their designers.  But it’s also about the whole culture of weaving and home design in twentieth-century Sweden. I hope you enjoy sharing my meanders in Swedish textile and design history.