Rugs Moroccan

The Middle Atlas in January. Snow on the ridgeline, and a Berber family under a thick ivory blanket they wove themselves.

Moroccan rugs come from the Berber tribes of the Middle Atlas and the plains. Beni Ourain carpets, thick ivory wool drawn with dark lozenges, served as sleeping rugs against mountain winters, and Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto set them in modernist rooms. Beni M’Guild rugs are denser, often deep red or blue. Rehamna carpets from the plains near Marrakech use saturated orange, purple and red. Boucherouite rag rugs turn scraps of recycled cloth into bright abstraction. Zayane flatweaves, figural kilims, silk-and-wool alternating-weft carpets and the bakhnug wedding shawl of Tunisia extend the vocabulary.

Deep pile and undyed wool make a soft, sculptural floor.

The architects were right. It was warmth first.