Luke Irwin’s Roman mosaic rugs

Architectural surfaces showing traces of wear have been big news in rug design of late, but Luke Irwin’s latest Mosaic Collection has been directly influenced by the ‘beyond serendiptous’ discovery of an elaborate Roman villa under the lawn of his Wiltshire home.

Architectural surfaces showing traces of wear have been big news in rug design of late, but Luke Irwin‘s latest Mosaic Collection has been directly influenced by the ‘beyond serendipitous’ discovery of an elaborate Roman villa under the lawn of his Wiltshire home.

The find was first unearthed by workmen laying electricity cables as reported widely by the British press over the weekend, and has understandably inspired his latest collection. The Guardian, Independent and BBC  are amongst those to feature the story, an extract from an interview on his own website follows.

“I love the idea that you have a mosaic rug in your drawing room it will transport you back, and you’ll think a thousand years ago there was a guy like me who was a senator or a governor or a general or whatever, and he had something like this – but that was of his time and this is of mine.

You’re trying to have bridges of thought throughout history, and not the arrogance of the present, where everything that went before was somehow a little bit underdeveloped or backward compared to how brilliant we are now. Our capacity is phenomenal, it’s just that at this moment it is focused on technology and medicine.”