nanimarquina is inspired by the streets of Shanghai

nanimarquina  continues to unveil its new rug collections this year, including the collection Jie, created by Shanghai-based architecture studio Neri & Hu, which has taken inspiration from the textures, relief patterns and prints of tiles in the streets of Shanghai.

The collection’s name references the Chinese character Jie — that embodies the essence of China’s most populous city, its movement, dynamism and frenetic activity. The resulting design is a varied, hand-tufted design with piles of different heights and finishes made of 100 per cent Chokla wool. The letter Jie comprises a radical and phonetic character. The ancient ideograms of the character depict both the street as an intersection and evoke life as a crossroads, while the central part is made up of two ‘earth’ characters, whose ideogram shows clay on a potter’s wheel —  ‘a link with the ceramic-style colours that we used for this collection,’ explain Neri & Hu. The piece was initially created for Neri & Hu’s installation Das Haus, presented at the IMM Cologne 2015 fair, for which the rug was first created. Its success there sparked Nanimarquina’s decision to manufacture and include it in its catalogue of products.

What’s more, this year the Spanish company has launched other collections, such as Lattice, designed by the Bouroullec brothers, and Tres, created by Nani Marquina.

nanimarquina was founded by Nani Marquina in Barcelona in 1987. The success of this pioneering, family-run contemporary rug business rests on combining constant innovation in terms of techniques and materials and the hand-crafting of its pieces. Well-known Spanish and foreign designers often collaborate in creating its designs to guarantee the diversity of styles and experimentation when it comes to textures, materials and forms. This has led to nanimarquina producing rugs suited to all tastes, styles of room and moods. The company opened its first showroom in New York two years ago.