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ASPLUND Biblioteket rug
This rug is designed by Emma Olbers for ASPLUND Carpets for the public library in Stockholm's newly renovated National museum
The story

Biblioteket means library in Swedish. This is a hand-knotted rug with design that represents a mixture of Emma’s first sketches of the Old Library in National Museum. With its three arches and three large windows at the top, in the middle rows of books in the old bookshelf and at the bottom the newly laid oak parquet.

Emma Olbers is a Swedish designer and creative director. Her mission is to try to design good products – good from all aspects, including being good for our planet. She has collaborated with a number of Scandinavian companies.

Emma Olbers was commissioned to design and furnish the Old Library of Sweden’s newly renovated National Museum, which was inaugurated by the end of 2018. The house, which dates from 1866, has been carefully renovated for several years. It has been a major project with a huge public interest in Sweden.

ASPLUND and Emma Olbers co-operated in this prestigious project.

The rug is made in a finely hand knotted tibetan knot with 50% wool and a 50% tencel mix. Tencel is made from fast-growing wood that is converted into textile fiber in an environmentally certified closed system. The wool is a mix from New Zealand and India.  The rug is manufactured in India.

Part of an Award winning design

Designer Emma Olbers won the Interior Design of the Year 2019 Award for the AD Magazine Germany contest. Emma won the award for her interior design for the Old Library in the newly renovated National Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. 

The Awards was handed out during the AD Design Summit that took place in Munich, November 26. This year’s theme was Sustainable Elegance.

– This is so incredibly great, for me it means a lot when the theme this year also was Sustainable Elegance. The jury had noticed how carefully we selected the materials when we were drawing the old library. I truly feel honoured with this award, says Emma Olbers.

Read more about AD Design Summit

The concept

The mission for Emma in the Old library project has been to start off from sustainability and to create a space for rest, reflection and a place for smaller exhibitions from the large library archive.

– The inspiration has come from the old reading rooms, Swedish materials and good craftsmanship. It is a great honor to be able to decorate a room whose permanent interior was designed 100 years ago, which hopefully will be there for 100 years until maybe someone else takes over, this gives perspective. With the help of the green color, I wanted to create a calm and harmonious room, says Emma Olbers.

Some of the best specialists, designers and craftsmen were employed in various aspects of the National museum project. After the re-opening, the museum constantly sets new visitor records. The building itself is considered to be a major attraction, maybe even one of the most beautiful museums in the world. The Old library is a central room in the building. The re-opening of the museum was considered amongst art-critics to be one of the biggest art and culture events of the decade in Sweden.

Available to the world

–  The best thing with all of this is that the rug will be available for worldwide sales. Already before official start of sales there has been a great interest from all over the world for this unique rug. It’s no wonder cause this will be a true centerpiece wherever it will be placed, in a private home, office or why not in a library? Making a unique design object available in this way makes me very proud says Thomas Asplund, CEO for ASPLUND.

Through our retailers and through our contract projects it’s now possible to buy the rug in three different sizes:

Large: 255x285cm
Medium: 255x233cm
Small: 255x205cm

Photos and editorial images copyright by Andy Liffner
Headerimage: Louise Billgert, copyright: ASPLUND