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Intersection
Studio KO's Ode to Memory
From Marrakech, Rabat, and Casablanca to Milan, Studio KO's first collection designed for Beni is bound by themes of time and record-keeping, transposing artifacts of industrial society into meticulously handcrafted Moroccan rugs.
Date
April 7th, 2025
Author
Beni
COLLECTION
Photographer
Romain Laprade
VIDEOGRAPHER
Iván Varela Suárez
Intersection was shot by Romain Laprade and filmed by Iván Varela Suárez at the Vincent Timsit Workshop, one of architect Jean-François Zevaco’s most celebrated works in Casablanca, built in 1952. Inspired by Oscar Neimeyer’s use of parabolic arches, the building is considered iconic — a building block from the past that laid a foundation for future architecture. Like the rugs of Intersection, the space is an artifact of production.
From Marrakech, Rabat, and Casablanca to Milan, Studio KO's first collection designed for Beni transposes artifacts of industrial society into handcrafted Moroccan heirlooms.
Redacted documents, time diaries, faded gestures in ink. Every act of ephemeral recollection turns eternal when pen is put to paper and when wool is woven into rugs.
Today in Milan, Intersection, a new collection of rugs designed by Paris and Marrakech-based architecture firm Studio KO, makes its debut during Salone del Mobile, also known as Milan Design Week. An annual celebration of otherworldly arts, this global moment of noteworthy creativity felt like the ideal stage for this collaboration, which is our most ambitious endeavor to date both technically — introducing new rug constructions — and conceptually, exploring memory, an idea as old as time itself.
Bound by themes of recollection and record-keeping, the 10 motifs of Intersection find meaning in the relics that inspired their design:
- (CEN-0124) Redacted documents
- (CAL-1040) Daily planners
- (PRO-0220) Time diaries
- (SCH-0627) Agendas
- (TIM-0312) Filing cabinets
- (NOT-0203) Notebooks
- (TAB-1816) Computer spreadsheets
- (LIN-0244) Graph paper
- (COV-0702) Case-bound books
- (STA-0203) Perforated sheets
Inspired by the motif of a case-bound book, the dyad construction of COV-0702, features both Altas and Zahara techniques, offering a sensorial, mixed-medium experience of plush woolen knots and a lighter flatweave underfoot. The flatwoven Zahara pattern at the center of this rug’s design — in juxtaposition with the surrounding pile — mimics the aesthetic of hand-embroidery, a masterful detail found throughout this collection.
With the launch of Intersection comes the debut of two new weaving typologies: hand-embroidery and Rabat, our most complex rug construction yet.
Born in Morocco’s capital city over 500 years ago and unaltered since, Rabat is our evolved revival of the R’bati carpet, a hyper-fine point knotted style with roots that date back to Morocco’s palatial interiors of the early 19th century. Woven from the highest quality fine wool, rugs produced from this method consist of 64 knots per square inch versus the 15 knots of a shaggy Atlas design. The intricacy of this added effort allows for more creative liberty within the rug’s decoration, reorienting the expectations and possibilities of its design.
Of the ten rugs that Studio KO designed, five of them feature this elevated construction.
- CEN-0124
- PRO-0220
- TIM-0312
- NOT-0203
- COV-0702
“We were not aware of how many combinations and traditions of rug weaving there were over so many geographies in Morocco. Like most of the world, to us a “Moroccan rug” is a shaggy Beni Ourain rug,” said Karl Fournier. “We were amazed by Beni’s willingness to push the boundaries, made possible by the ground-breaking workshop they have created, where their weaving team’s expertise–and the immense respect that Robert and Tiberio have for their knowledge, craft, and ideas–makes experimentation, prototyping, and collaboration on process and fabrication possible.”
Rows of lines resemble blurry schedules remembered in SCH-0627, a rug inspired by the poetic practicality of an agenda.
Inspired by the subtle precision of a perforated sheet, STA-0203 offers layers of productivity's past in hues of natural wool, rust, and midnight black.
Inspired by the methodical architecture of graph paper, LIN-0244 presents a satisfying recollection of subtle productivity.
Similarly, rugs that feature hand-embroidery require a haute-level of unwavering skill that only a handful of weavers in our studio can execute. A masterclass in craft, the ability to author this arduous technique is a milestone achievement in the lifetime of a weaver that's earned through experience and dedication.
TIM-0312 is a relic-turned rug inspired by the pragmatic beauty of a filing cabinet. Its Rabat construction features tens of thousands of tightly-woven woolen knots.
"Intersection is an ode to memory — how we write, preserve, and share it,” says Studio KO co-founder Olivier Marty.
Paying homage to the concealed mysteries of a redacted document, the meticulous materiality of CEN-0124 is articulated through raised woolen motifs, stitched atop the rug's design.
If you find yourself in Milan for Salone del Mobile, join us:
Monday, April 7, 2025 between 4-530PM
Tuesday, April 8–Saturday, April 12, 2025
10AM-530PM
Via Cesare Correnti, 14, 20123, Milan
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