The rug and the cavern
What is the nature of rugs?
Some objects function like obvious facts for a civilisation, consequently they are embodied within the guise of myths and prime objects. Thus, the natural origin of things is often related through archetypal narratives. Let us start with caves, which one may think of as having been the ideal location for the first established homes.
Therefore, is it not possible that the inhabitants of these caves, having decided to settle and with their own "comfort" in mind, may well have furnished the cold, damp floor upon which they slept with rugs. A different narrative leads us to consider the origin of an architecture which adopts the natural roof of the forest, under the trees, as is depicted on the frontispiece of Marc- Antoine Laugier's Essay on Architecture. Here, the pattern of a carpet of leaves may well be the source for the motifs which cover these comfortable surfaces.
And from the origins of architecture within forests, the patterns of the forest feature within rugs.
If one takes the presence of rugs within our interiors seriously, then what are their values? From a modern comfort, to a rationale of horizontality which represents a platform for community, the questions which rugs provide are open, permanent, and profoundly human. Mathieu Buard, design and fashion critic
Rugs Parade
Villa Noailles, Hyères
