Geometry, from MINOTOR to the line

Two colours per rug, and relief. This is how MINOTOR 2.0 takes up, this season, the geometry Christian Signorel brought into the house with MINOTOR. A geometric rug, as we understand it, is a rug whose design is held entirely by the line. Straight lines, curves, concentric circles and intersecting structures organise the surface, and the very shape of the rug, round, oblong or nef, is part of the composition. At Diacasan Edition, this geometry has an author. It is drawn flat by a designer, then translated into wool by our workshop in India, in hand-tufting, with which the house has worked for twenty-five years. What distinguishes one graphic rug from another can therefore be seen in two places: in the precision of the line, and in the way the workshop holds it once the drawing is enlarged to the floor.

Where does the geometry of MINOTOR come from?

It comes from a sheet of paper. Christian Signorel works flat, on large formats, in pencil then in colour. A designer by training, he refuses to separate object and motif: the graphic gesture precedes the piece and carries it. His artist page speaks of an obsession with perspective, and the artistic director puts it more simply: “With him, everything is born of the line.”

With MINOTOR, this line composes true abstract paintings. Lines, curves and structures overlap densely, pure colours oppose one another, contrasts are underlined. The Nef unfolds a celestial geometry of concentric circles; the Rond sets a circle in motion. The collection bears the name of a labyrinth, and the Mircur mirrors that accompany it recall this: their glass is engraved with fine lines that evoke endless meanders.

This first project was a trial. The piece was dense, richly worked, difficult to translate into tufting. The workshop in India took several weeks to find the right stitch, the one that keeps the power of the drawing without sacrificing the softness of the rug. That test became a method, which could be summed up thus: hold the graphic line, adjust the material.

The shape of the rug is part of the drawing

A geometric rug is read first by its outline. MINOTOR exists as a round, an oblong and a nef, and these formats count as much as the motif: each is a design decision. The nef has become the emblematic piece of the collection, the one that makes its effect at every presentation. The oblong stretches the line, the round draws it back to its centre.

Christian Signorel applies the same principle to BESTIAIRE, where the shape of the rugs comes from Greco-Roman cameos and Egyptian cartouches. The outline already carries a reference before the eye even enters the motif. For a lover of drawing, this is often where the piece is decided: a silhouette laid on the floor, recognisable from afar, like a signature.

MINOTOR 2.0: the same drawing, another reading

MINOTOR 2.0 keeps the original graphics and changes how they appear. Each rug plays in only two colours, and relief enters the piece. We had prototypes made at different scales to check that the drawing held, and each colour was tried in both directions. The round was not carried over: the collection keeps its Oblong and Nef formats, the most recognisable.

The six colourways are borrowed from stone, from Argile to Calacatta, by way of Azurite, Emperador, Levanto and Onyx. The material combines wool and Tencel, hand-tufted in India. Relief does the rest: it makes light play on the volumes where the first version made the colours play against one another. We have detailed this work in our article on relief in a rug.

Why this change? Because some admirers of MINOTOR loved the drawing without seeing themselves living with such a density of colour. Version 2.0 keeps the identity of the line and enters classical interiors more easily. The geometry remains the same. It becomes more discreet.

What becomes of geometry beyond MINOTOR?

It branches out. In BESTIAIRE, Christian Signorel starts from an octopus spotted in a mosaic at Pompeii and plays with curves and meanders: Poulpo, Scarab, Hydre become highly graphic figures, where the living is held by the line. Christian Signorel's cushions extend this handwriting. Scarab brings the Egyptian scarab back to symmetry and outspread wings; Hydre makes every line fork without losing its centre; Colisée keeps from Roman architecture the arch and the repetition of curved stone. LUKAN, more restrained, lets geometry take the upper hand on a fireside chair in solid oak.

Other artists of the house approach the line differently. Renaud Allirand, painter and engraver, writes of SUR LE FIL: “Changing architecture, of curves and meanders the thread becomes a straight line.” With him, the line is born of engraving and is hand-knotted in Nepal. Each handwriting remains distinct, and that is intended: each collection keeps the hand of its author, which is what we call the work of a rug publisher.

Where to place a graphic rug?

Where the architecture already answers. A MINOTOR goes very well in Haussmannian apartments, where its lines converse with the mouldings and parquet floors; it adapts fairly well anywhere, provided one wants a piece that asserts a drawing. In the scenography of the rue du Bac showroom, an oval MINOTOR Cuivre has taken its place in the large niche at the back, its motif following the curve of the concrete.

The rest is a matter of context. In an interior that is already very colourful, a restrained piece is better, and MINOTOR 2.0, with its two colours, answers that situation. In a calmer interior, the first version brings colour and becomes the landmark of the room. Whoever chooses a rug by Christian Signorel is not looking for an atmosphere. He recognises a hand, a signature, the coherence of a collection.

MINOTOR: round, oblong or nef. Wool, hand-tufted in India.

Text written by the house of Diacasan Edition from interviews with Sandrine Demas, the collection records and exchanges with our workshop in India, October 2026.