Jan Kath
Bochum, Germany

You can be cool while still keeping your feet warm! With his modern designs, Jan Kath is creating a completely new perspective on carpets. Guided by a bold approach to his work, Kath, who is from Bochum, combines classical elements of oriental carpets with contemporary, minimalist design. He consciously breaks with customary ways of seeing and throws strict rules of composition overboard. While an entire generation once rolled up their grandmothers' Persian rugs and exiled them from their living rooms, Kath's designs are now bringing them "back to the carpet."

"Nobody feels comfortable in clinically styled apartments with highly polished concrete floors," Kath explains. "Our carpets are an organic dotting of the ‘i', islands of well-being, which have a healing effect in cool interiors - without destroying the overall style."

Jan Kath, who is now internationally recognized as one of the most important carpet designers in the world, is an autodidact. The matrix for his innovative designs is formed by a relationship to carpets that has deep emotional roots. Jan Kath is from the third generation of a family of carpet dealers who have branches in the Ruhr and in Berlin. When he was just a young boy, he and his father visited manufacturers in Iran and Nepal. These experiences educated his eye and awakened a fundamental understanding of color combinations and proportions.

At the same time, Jan Kath never wanted to follow in the footsteps of his parents, and never wanted to continue running their business for them. In order to find his own way, he travelled through Asia and the Middle East when he was 20 years old. During his road trip, he wound up, more or less accidentally, in Nepal. There, friends of his family offered him the opportunity to start working as a quality controller in their carpet production. His "connection with the world of carpets" was reestablished. Later, Jan Kath took control of the manufacturing process, and began to produce his own designs.

Inspired by numerous trips through vibrant metropolises like Paris, Istanbul, New York, Tokyo, Beirut, Sydney, and, last but not least, his home - the Ruhr, with its archaic industrial culture - Jan Kath quickly developed his own individual signature. While the allure created by imperfection, erosion, and transformation plays a central role in his designs, Kath is "uncompromisingly conservative" where quality is concerned.