East Meets West
Merging Western-Style Carpet Design with Oriental Architecture

Contact: CRI Communications Department, 706.428.2103

January 2002

Overview

Serving as the Presidential retreat and the meeting facility for the People's Republic of China's government officials and foreign dignitaries, the Xi Jiao Guest House is one of China's most influential government facilities, equivalent to the United States' Camp David. The Xi Jiao Guest House complex includes a number of lobbies, restaurants, meeting rooms, banquet halls, the third floor Presidential Suite and separate villas, situated among acres of lavish Chinese gardens. Located in the heart of Shanghai, the Chinese government wanted to add a Western influence to their interior design and create an international meeting place worthy of respect. In order to accomplish this one year, $15 million renovation project, government officials contacted American architect and interior designer, Mr. George Grigorian, owner of Grigorian Design Group in New York.

Challenges

The scope of the Xi Jiao Guest House project entailed completely renovating the facility's interior design, including walls, furniture and flooring. Grigorian was challenged with utilizing a Western-style design, while maintaining elements of the facility's traditional Oriental style dcor. In addition, Grigorian was charged with incorporating luxurious decorative accents, such as marble and gold, into every area of the immense facility. However, one of Grigorian's main challenges was providing the complex with quality flooring that would match the facility's elaborate Oriental architecture.

Grigorian had to find a carpet and rug manufacturer that could produce beautiful, high-quality Oriental carpet and rugs with a Western influence. In addition, Grigorian had to locate a carpet manufacturer whose products could measure up to China's signature Oriental rugs and high-quality craftsmanship.

Grigorian felt that Fabrica rugs, made with low-luster nylons and hand-carved to a laser-like precision, were perfect to separate American style craftsmanship from the beautiful but less exacting standards of Chinese rugs. In addition, Fabrica's high-twist yarns would not be as prone to the extreme water marking common of many Oriental rugs. In order to carry out this project, Grigorian contacted Al Frink with Fabrica International in order to create over 450,000 square feet of custom-designed, wall-to-wall rugs and broadloom carpet.

Carpet

Grigorian took several styles from Fabrica's rug book and custom designed the flooring to accentuate the facility's elaborate oriental architecture. In order to create his "architecture on the floor," he adapted different carpet styles and created Oriental designs consisting of geometric shapes, patterns and tone-on-tone colors.

Grigorian selected 2,000 square yards of Fabrica's broadloom patterned carpet, predominately "Wailea," as well as two colors of "Mandalay" and some custom dyed "Gazebo" for the facility's wall-to-wall carpet. However, the focus of the project consisted of creating 21 large wall-to-wall handcrafted area rugs. The designs for over 3,000 square yards of rugs were selected from Fabrica's "Odyssey Rug Collection." Custom rugs inspired by "Parliament" were used extensively throughout the facility and Fabrica's broadloom product, "Brittany," was used as the main component in the construction of all the area rugs. Other designs used in individual rooms to create the luxurious, hand-carved, Western-style rugs included "Veranda," "Masai," "Belcourt," "Sherwood," "Wayside," and "Town Square."

Result

The Chinese government was extremely pleased with the entire renovation project, including the beautiful rugs. The rugs became the focal point of many rooms due to their custom design and quality. Because of Grigorian's artistic vision and Fabrica's efforts to produce quality, custom designed carpet and luxurious hand-carved rugs, they transformed the Xi Jiao Guest House into a "show place" worthy of international respect.

"The Xi Jiao Guest House project is a shining example of what American industry and tenacity can accomplish. We broke into a highly guarded international market and surpassed the Chinese government's expectations," said Frink, executive vice president and co-founder of Fabrica International. "Just think of dignitaries from around the world, walking on American-made carpet and rugs in a country that has over a thousand years of history producing rugs."