Designer Desire: Ege Rya

Montage of Ege Rya rug designs

Last week we took a look at Scandinavian rug designer, Ingegerd Silow; this week we’ll explore the genre a little further.

Ege Tæpper (Tæpper translates as ‘rug’ in Danish) was founded in 1938 in Herning, central Denmark by Mads Eg Damgaard. The company continues to produce carpet to this day. Although this series is entitled ‘Designer Desire’, Ege Rya wasn’t actually an individual designer, but a successful subsidiary of the company. During the 1960s & 70s, its machine-made, colourful, often groovy, patterned floor rugs in a range of sizes – in rectangular and circular shapes.

‘Rya’ is a traditional rug made of wool with a thick ‘shag pile’ finish. In Finland, this type of rug is known as Ryijy.

Some of the funky Ege Rya designs were entitled Ada Orange, Ballade 30, Serenade 90, Tronheim 10 and Route 66 (this last one is shown in two colourways at the top of the montage above). There were a number of ranges; including Boutique, DeLuxe and Polar.

We’ve found a few genuine Ege Rya and Ege Tæpper rugs currently for sale on 1stDibs, Etsy and Pamono.

There were a few other companies around the world who were manufacturing this kind of thick pile woollen rugs at the same time; These included Norden in England, Højer Eksport Wilton in Denmark, Hayim & Co in New York and Svängsta Slottsmatta in Sweden.

There’s a little more information to be found about Ege Rya on the Classic Modern website.

Image credits:
Etsy

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