The Stripes carpet collection
Two constant features characterise the Swiss carpet producer Ruckstuhl. First, the
company has made a name for itself all over the world with the supreme quality
and ambitious designs of its natural fibre carpets. And secondly, Ruckstuhl takes its
cultural mission very seriously - through the way it engages with topical themes or
uses them as a basis for setting new trends.
A special kind of constant is to be seen in the Stripes collection. There are some
motifs which people have always applied, ever since the time of the ancient Greeks
– one of these is the stripe. In his Fundamentals of Geometry (around 300 BC),
Euclid wrote that parallels are straight lines that have no points of intersection and
do not meet – not even at infinity, so they do not ever meet at all. That makes
sense.
As is always the case with Ruckstuhl, production has been preceded by intensive
research. First of all the design team carried out empirical observations and looked
at the world around them: where can we find things that do not meet, or that run in
parallel without relating to one another? Where do things exist without forming a
connection? A whole range of typologies emerges, distinguished by contrasts in
the optical appearance and the colour, the materials and structures, the qualities
and the processing. Secondly, the team found it illuminating to consider the
etymological development of the German word Streifen (stripe). For instance,
there is the fact that Streifen belongs to the word group Strahl, where Strahl means
beam or jet, along with further surprising connections to words such as Streifzug
(raid), Streiflicht (ray of light), Strand (beach) and Strähne (strand), not to mention
the verbs streifen (skim), abstreifen (slip off), streichen (paint) and streicheln
(stroke). Original and suggestive – what more could a creative team ask for?
The owner of the firm Peter Ruckstuhl comments: “The challenge was that of
discovering the most striking out of a plethora of possibilities, and of uniting things
that on the face of it do not appear to go together. It was also important to make
use of new materials: for instance, we combined wood and black polyurethane with
a wool fleece. This is a combination that has never been seen in carpets before.
When you replace the felt with wood, the result is something of a sensation – a
wooden carpet that can be rolled up. And by the way, this wooden carpet (Legno
Legno) won the Red Dot Design Award for 2006."
The ‘Stripes’ collection illustrates the way in which contrasts can act on one another
in a carpet, giving rise to powerfully expressive aesthetic effects. The necessary
condition for this is that you face up to the opposition, and allow yourself to be
drawn into new modes of composition. In the world of today, that sounds like a
sensible suggestion in social terms as well.
Ruckstuhl AG, CH-Langenthal / January 2008 2
The Stripes collection first came on the market in 2007, and has been significantly
extended as from 1.1.08, with new colour shades in 'Feltro Cut', 'Legno Legno' and
'Feltro Legno'.
Get-up Fel tro
Two wool qualities with a completely different surface alternate here: the
compact, smooth felt 'Feltro Basic', and the two-colour, lively velours carpet 'Getup',
the whole being surrounded with a discreet cotton band.
Capra-Zand
Two exceptional carpets, combined to produce a new optical effect: the woollen
plus linen carpet 'Zand' with its discreet shine, and the paper plus hair yarn carpet
'Capra' with its special material qualities, surrounded with a fine leather band.
Porta Cut-loop
The familiar brush carpet in a new guise: the pattern of stripes is created from the
alternation of cut and loop. Porta Cut-loop can be used either as a dirt collector or
alternatively as an area carpet.
Legno Legno
Pure wood, and something of a sensation: a completely wooden carpet - which
can still be rolled up! This opens up new possibilities of floor design, breaking the
barriers of the traditional area carpet. Legno Legno comes in beech, oak and
walnut woods. Different methods of treatment result in an extended colour range:
the wood can be oiled, steamed, smoked or glazed white.
Felt ro Legno
Oak wood is here combined with felt made from pure virgin wool: a new form of
the traditional area carpet. The three different colour shades result from the
treatment of the oak wood, which can be just oiled, smoked or glazed white.
Flatwool-Jaipur and Rollercolor-Jaipur
Hard and soft: with a zip between them - both combining and separating the two
opposite qualities of sisal and wool.
Felt ro Cut
The fine pattern of stripes and compact surface arise from the surprising
combination of two 'Feltro Color' qualities. A law of optics states that closely
adjacent two-colour stripes result in visual interference effects. This has been
convincingly illustrated in the ‘Feltro Cut’: as you approach the carpet, it develops
an optical life of its own.