Nani Marquina – Poetic Rugs (test 1)

It was no accident that Nani Marquina dedicated her career to design. At the age of ten, she discovered the interest that would lead her to build one of our finest and most creative carpet brands.

Nani Marquina first saw the olive oil container her father had designed when she was ten years old, but it set the tone for the rest of her life. It was in many ways an everyday object, used every day, but admired by the whole family. What made the biggest impression was that her father had won an award for designing it.

– The desire to improve already existing objects was etched in my mind. It was probably the day that I started to understand what design was all about, that I knew I wanted to make it my profession," says Nani Marquina.

Her father Rafael Marquina was a pioneer in the design industry, receiving the first FAD Award in 1961 for his Marquina Oil, a stylish non-drip olive oil container. He was one of the founders of the first Spanish design organisation and worked to improve the function of everyday and industrial objects through creativity and design.

Respecting older craft traditions, the brand now makes all its rugs using ancient techniques by weavers in India, Pakistan and Nepal. But it wasn't always this way. Nani Marquina recounts a before and after of her first trip to India in 1993 to find new production methods.

– I had no idea how the trip would change our professional life, my life as a designer and everything related to the brand and the company. India made me connect with something I didn't know about food traditions and craftsmanship. It changed the way we produce, has increased the quality and made me realise that carpets carry a cultural message. The limitations of producing by hand also forced me to be even more innovative and creative," she says.

Respecting older craft traditions, the brand now makes all its rugs using ancient techniques by weavers in India, Pakistan and Nepal. But it wasn't always this way. Nani Marquina recounts a before and after of her first trip to India in 1993 to find new production methods.

Both a piece of furniture and a work of art

With each carpet design, Nanimarquina tries to evoke emotions in the recipient. The tools are colours, fibres and textures that, in the right combination, create rugs that the customer falls in love with and wants to take home. Each rug also brings together two genres of interior design that Nani Marquina takes into account in its design:

– A carpet acts as both a piece of furniture and a work of art. It provides the comfort of having something nice underfoot as well as inspiration in the same way as a painting. Rugs define a space and focus on a place in the room where we will socialise or place a piece of furniture," she says.