Rug, from the Koebel House, Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan

The Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen moved to the United States in 1923 and became the chief architect for the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His most important commission was a series of buildings for George Booth at Cranbrook. Saarinen, like many of his contemporaries, thought that art should permeate the entire living environment. Because Saarinen believed in the Arts and Crafts ideal of total design, the furnishings and interiors he designed for buildings and residences must be viewed in this larger context. Saarinen frequently worked closely with his wife, Loja, on designing textiles and color selections for his interiors, and most of the rugs and fabrics for his buildings were woven at Studio Loja Saarinen, a weaving studio created in 1928. The central design concept of this rug relates stylistically to architectural motifs found elsewhere in the Koebel House for which it was designed. The carpet's restrained elegance and color scheme are hallmarks of Saarinen's style, but like Saarinen's other designs from the mid-1930s, all traces of Finnish Romanticism and rich patterns have been replaced by more abstract geometry. (C. McCarty, from Collections Committee Meeting minutes, December 6, 2000)