Kingswood School Cranbrook "Rooftops" Rug

The Kingswood School Cranbrook Rug No. 30, Rooftops rug was designed by Studio Loja Saarinen Shop Supervisor and designer Maja Andersson Wirde and woven by the Swedish immigrant weavers of Studio Loja Saarinen in 1931. It is practically identical to “Kingswood School Cranbrook Rug No. 29, Rooftops” , differing only in exact yarn colors and in edge detail (both rugs have had the original fringe removed and a new binding added.

At Studio Loja Saarinen, Maja Andersson-Wirde was largely responsible for the Cranbrook textiles and worked to develop a new American textile art inspired by Scandinavian style. Wirde was given large responsibility as a shop director and designer of textile development for Kingswood (1929-31). She designed rugs for two reception rooms, the Green Lobby, three rugs, curtains, and fabric for the library, study hall, curtains and fabric for the dining room, as well as rugs and curtains for the forty or more bedrooms. She designed several other rugs for exhibitions and for the Saarinen’s house.

Wirde’s Cranbrook rugs are noted for their strict geometries with asymmetries and soft shifts in color paired with high contrast. Contrasted this to Loja’s rugs, which were architectonic and strict, without the same variation of design and décor.

Both “Rooftops” rugs were used in the Kingswood School Cranbrook West Lobby, the current site of the Kingswood Campus Library, to flank a much larger rug (now lost). The “Rooftops” rugs are known to depict the red clay tile roofs of Cranbrook School for Boys, and feature abstracted roof lines, chimney stacks, and arched entryways in a large, central field of orange, cream, red, and yellow yarns. The border of the rug features exuberant Art Deco patterning of zigzags, stripes, and Greek meanders, in many shades of yellows, purples, oranges, browns, and blacks.

Kevin Adkisson
Curator
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
June 2023