Design

Playing with Tradition by Richard Hutten

Brad Turner

16 February 2010

At design fair Object Rotterdam earlier this month Dutch designer Richard Hutten presented new additions to his Playing with Tradition series of oriental rugs, where the traditional patterns are stretched into stripes.

For each hand-knotted wool rug, Hutten carefully selected a point from which the pattern was to be stretched in order to create his reinterpretation.

The traditional ends of the rugs retain their decorative fringes while the new sides have been cut off cleanly.

The Playing with Tradition series was exhibited by I+I of Milan during Object Rotterdam 2010.

Here’s some more information from Richard Hutten:

Playing with tradition

For already many years I had the idea to do something with traditional oriental carpets. I have an antique Persian carpet at my home, which I still find the best carpets to have. The idea behind the carpet was to build a bridge between the old and the new, east meets west. From this starting point I looked at various ways to give a reinterpretation.

In my previous work I also used existing forms which I than reinterpret. For the carpet I did research in the various patterns available. Than I came up with the idea to stretch the carpet a certain point. I found out it’s very important where to start the stretching. On the traditional side I kept the fringes, on the contemporary side I made a clear cut.