Federica Tondato

Stories Editor's Pick Federica Tondato

HoT – History of Things When we love something, we want to know the story behind it… as told by the designer herself : Federica Tondato

Life is strange: I always thought I would become an architect and work with volumes and tridimensional spaces… but then something happened, and now I’m in the… two-dimensional business of designing rugs!

 

I did become an architect though, but after graduating I did not look for a job right away as I wanted to explore the arts, and I started making videos. One day a friend asked me if I wanted to film a documentary about the Tibetan refugees in the Indian city of Dharamshala. I stayed there 5 weeks that turned out to be a life changing experience.

 

During that time I started making some drawings of abstract patterns and went to meet many skilled artisans in the region, weavers and embroiderers, and ordered some samples. I did not know exactly what to do with that but I brought the samples back and showed them to a friend. She loved them and warmly insisted that I pursue the project. I did: those first samples were the basis for the first rugs I designed. Now, more than twenty years later, I just love the idea that a rug – a flat object with two dimensions only – can alter the volume of a room.

 

The architect inside me is very happy.

Federica Tondato

Federica Tondato has been passionate about weaving techniques from a young age and studied architecture between London and New York. For her, a rug ‘needs to be architecture’. More than decorating a surface, her creations rebuild, open, enlarge and compliment a space. The graphic poetry of her rugs are displayed by the exquisite curves of the embroidery, with its endless permutations, in perfect balance with the shapes. Symbols and motifs give meaning to her work and along with the interplay of lines, complement the tactile relief and seductive textures of her rugs.

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