The Moroccan Urban Carpets love affair with carpets

The Moroccan Urban Carpets love affair with carpets 
Urban Carpets, Carpets creator

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Moroccan carpets are the height of fashion right now and because of their beauty, versatility, and compatability with almost any interior, they are appearing in beautiful homes, hotels and interior and design magazines the world over.

Moroccans and riad owners have always had a long standing love of carpets. Carpets are cherished items, which are meticulously cared for. They are investment pieces that ground rooms and provide them with the basis for the palette of their decor. A beautiful carpet is indeed the foundation of riad interior design, not to mention artwork for a floor. Everything works off their vibe. Accordingly, here they are considered one of the most important furnishing of all.

Moroccan carpets therefore don't just serve a practical function in riads, they ultimately enhance the living space.


Carpets and rugs vary greatly in design and colouring from region to region.

There are two distinct types of carpets in Morocco: urban Islamic carpets and rural tribal carpets.

Rabat is the historic centre of the Moroccan urban Islamic carpet making tradition and its pile weave carpets are referred to as Rabat, or R'bati carpets. They are formal in style, and much more sophisticated, with extremely diverse coloration. It is not uncommon for them to require months of painstaking work to complete.

Urban carpet making in Rabat can be traced back to the 18th century, and was greatly influenced and inspired by formal styles and techniques from neigbouring Mediterranean countries and the Middle East from where there was always a marked cultural exchange.

For Moroccans, urban carpets are utilitarian as much as works of art.

Urban carpets tend to be thicker and have larger borders than rural tribal carpets. Their designs, like any Islamic art form, consist of stylized geometric patterns. These are centred upon a central motif that works its way to a highly detailed border, which echoes the central motif - like in the above photo. One of the most striking features to them are their rich yarns and lustrous colours.




The other type of carpets are rural tribal carpets, which are produced by the hundreds of different ethnic tribal groups, of mainly Berber origin, scattered across Morocco.

Tribal carpet making pre-dates the urban tradition. It is considerably older in fact and is, interestingly, centred predominantly upon less formal, pre-Islamic designs and styles.

Berbers historically, were insular by nature and their carpet making was not influenced by the outside world. Traditionally carpets were made for simply personal and domestic use by women for their own families, who passed weaving techniques down through the generations. The designs and techniques they employed were therefore a remarkable and authentic expression of their unique culture – as they still are today.

Carpets are normally used as bedding, floor coverings or blankets. They are flat-woven, though some are pile rugs, and their designs feature abstract expressive and individual imagery often reflecting superstitious and spiritual beliefs such as wards against the evil eye. For example, wedding blankets are thought to be filled with baraka, or divine blessings, and their mass of sequins supposedly ward off the malevolence that brides are believed to be vulnerable to.

The colouring is more natural than in Rabat rugs and the most sought after carpets have little repetition of design.



Undoubtedly my favourite carpets come from the Beni Ouarain - who are an important Berber tribe from the Middle Atlas mountain region.

The main characteristic of a Beni Ouarain carpet is the shaggy pile - (as above).

Beni Ouarain carpets are all hand loomed in lovely soft bouncy wool shorn from sheep rather than wool removed from a sheepskin. It means they are especially warm and comfortable under foot.

Each carpet is a unique organic piece and highly collectible. No two are ever alike.

Somehow they never fail to compliment and enhance space, and I simply love the creamy golden beige shaggy piles I have in our Marrakech home – that function so nicely on the cold tadelakt flooring. Their zigzag and lozenge designs are particularly cool.



When it comes to buying a carpet, you should inquire about knot density and both the type of dye and fiber used. Better quality carpets have a higher number of knots per square meter, are handmade and constructed from 100% wool or 100% nylon.

Cheaper carpets made of, for example, olefin, are readily available, but these carpets are highly flammable (moving a chair across the carpet can even create scorch marks), they attract more dirt and gray over time. It is also worth noting that synthetic dyes produce bolder colors, but are more likely to fade over time, whereas natural dyes produce lighter long lasting colors.

Chic Marrakech are happy to recommend some reputable carpets dealers.

Carpets of morocco.. Moroccan carpets and textiles

Carpets of Morocco.. Moroccan carpets and textiles 
Carpets. Moroccan carpets and textiles come in a wide variety of sizes, colors, designs, and materials. Some are still hand-knotted and dyed with natural vegetable pigments. Berber (or rural) carpets are often thick and woolen and their colors—beige, brown, and tan—reflect the mountainous landscape where the Berbers live. Urban carpets, introduced to Morocco from the east in the 18th century, often feature a multitude of designs in bands of unequal width within a rectangular frame. Top quality can cost thousands of dirhams. Fez has been the country's principal center of weaving since the 16th century while small country souks (markets) outside of Marrakech are good spots to find something special. Meknes and Rabat are known for their embroidered carpets.

Leather goods. Moroccan artisans produce a wide variety of leather goods, from unpolished bags and satchels to Koran covers and babouches, the quintessential Moroccan slipper, flat-soled and heel-less, most often white, beige, yellow, or red in color. As with Moroccan carpets, quality and price often go hand in hand when purchasing the leather goods found in most cities' souks. In Fez, as in other cities, you can even see the elaborate process of preparing the animal skins and dyeing the leather in vats of salts, oils, and dyes.

Jewelry. Mostly silver, Moroccan jewelry can be chunky and heavy, often bearing deeply etched designs. Production techniques include casting, enameling, filigree, and engraving. Andalusian and Jewish immigrants have influenced many of these techniques. Products include bracelets, rings, necklaces, earrings, and even decorated daggers. Beware of silver-plating. As with all Moroccan handicrafts, the souks, often within every major city's medina, will feature a wide range of jewelry in terms of type, quality, and price.

Marquetry. An intricate art form, marquetry is a decorative process in which wooden goods are inlaid with veneers, copper and silver wire, ebony, and mother of pearl in floral or geometric patterns. Moroccan artisans inlay a variety of products including furniture, picture frames, ornaments, chess sets, and trinket boxes. While an item's quality of finish may be less than ideal, best check the item's hinges and joints to be sure you're getting a good product (and deal). The woodworkers' atelier in Essaouira is the best place to buy marquetry products and to watch them be painstakingly created. The woodworkers in Marrakech and Azrou use local cedar and olive tree wood. In Fez, the products are typically brightly painted chests and baby cribs.

Ceramics. From rough-hewn, utilitarian glazed red and brown earthenware to enameled decorative pieces, Moroccan artisans create a wide variety of ceramics: jugs, vases, and tableware (cups, saucers, and cooking pots to make tagines). Some are glazed, others bedecked with gilt motifs; intricate, geometric, curved, or cross-stitched designs; and a variety of glazed or metallic finishes. Beware of the gaudy products peddled in touristed towns. Safi, the country's main ceramics center, is known for its darker-colored ceramics while Fez's artisans produce attractive cobalt blue pieces and Meknes is known for its well-finished Damascene ware.

Clothing. The djellabah, an ankle-length, loose-fitting robe with a pointed hood is Moroccans' traditional dress. Some are made of fine wool while others are composed of homespun yarn. Women's djellabahs are often made with a greater range of fabric types, tend to be tighter fitting, and often bear decorative stitching while men's are baggier, plainer, and generally lighter in color.

Brass and copperware. Fez and Marrakech are best known for their brass and copperware; trays, braziers, door knockers, teapots, incense burners, candelabras, and lanterns. Many bear Arabesque or floral motifs. Wrought-iron legs can be added to the largest trays to make a unique table for entertaining. Sapphire, ruby, emerald, and topaz-colored sheets of glass are added to the lanterns to project a brooding, mysterious aura when lit.

EASTERN MOROCCO

EASTERN MOROCCO

This image shows an area of eastern Morocco. Morocco is located in northwest Africa, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, Mauritania, and Algeria. Morocco is a leading producer and exporter of phosphates and also mines iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, cobalt, molybdenum, and coal. The image shows a portion of the Atlas mountains near the town of Rissani, which is located in northeast Morocco about 50 km (31 mi) from the Algerian border. In this image, dark areas between brighter rock outcrops are channels covered in sand that serve as conduits for seasonal streams that run through the dry desert region. The image was obtained by SIR-C/X-SAR on the Space Shuttle Endeavour on April 15, 1994 and shows an area about 34 km (21 mi) on a side.





Moroccan artifacts go a long way back and the carpet is certainly the oldest of all of them. Here is a country famous for its carpets and carpet production and a long history to go with it.



With household names such as Kilim (embroidered carpet from Mid Atlas), Glawa (stitched, knotted and embroidered from the High Atlas) and Taznaght (knotted carpet from the High Atlas) you have found a product which is a must to take home with you.

The loom is traditionally made from the local wood of the valley and is part of the tradition of each household in Morocco, a country famous for its carpets, rugs and mats. Khali from the Brothers Amazoze Imlil in the High Atlas Mountains have the last say in the village on your way up the valley towards Toubkal.



Although the carpets from Eastern Morocco have attracted little scholarly as well as commercial attention, their importance and influence on the development of rural Moroccan weaving culture - particularly on the one of the Middle Atlas - cannot be underestimated.
As in the Middle Atlas, the carpets were generally used as sleeping mats and covers but due to the lower regions and the milder climate they only have a pile about 2cm high, and various forms of symmetric knots, asymmetric knots as well as the Berber knot are used. The sizes normally vary between 160 and 220 cm in width and from 3 up to 10 meters in length.
Pile carpets in Eastern Morocco can be subdivided into a female style similar to the traditions in the Middle Atlas and a male style, which has an affinity to the traditions in Algeria and Tunisia. While the women produced the carpets for their own families in a self supporting nomadic economic system, the male traditions base on a system of specialised professional masterweavers (Arab.: mallem).
The very  large masterweaver carpets, sometimes up to 10 meters long, were made for wealthy families among the northern tribes of the Metalsa, Beni bou Yahi, Beni bou Zeggou and the Beni Snassen. Such pieces were regarded as extremely prestigious and served as examples and source of inspiration for the more widespread female carpet production. Occasionally the eastern Moroccan masterweavers also worked in the northern and eastern middle Atlas and hence were of significant influence to these regions too.
The design scheme of these carpets shows the traditional simple geometric Berber motifs such as lozenges, triangles, crosses etc. inscribed in a regular, symmetric overall lozenge grid-composition with well balanced colours containing high amounts of deep indigo blue and green in old examples. Borders are typical, but usually the ones along the