MEET TEKLAN
Tekla Severin, also known as Teklan, is an internationally recognized, multidisciplinary designer and interior architect celebrated for her masterful use of color and her ability to create architectural yet playful interiors. In collaboration with LAYERED, she has developed two collections where color, shape, and material come together in graphic harmony.
“I always start with a kind of mood or atmosphere that I want to explore and give shape to. From there, the design process itself is quite straightforward and methodical, step by step.”
For those who are not familiar with your work. How would you describe yourself?
I´m an interior architect in the core, but I work as a multidisciplinary designer, with color as my language. That’s why I primarily refer to myself as a color artist, or colourist. Just like the classical colorists, where color takes center stage rather than the subject itself, for me too, color is always the most prominent element—regardless of medium, project, or material.
How would you describe your work?
Colorful, bold yet harmonious; minimalist–maximalist, graphic, geometric, and playfully surreal – carefully balanced compositions.
What does you creative process look like?
I always start with a sort of mood or atmosphere I want to explore and materialize. From then the actual process is very straight forward. Step by step from first draft to sample round, to evaluation, to adjustments, to completed product or interior.
This is your second collaboration with LAYERED, what did you want to explore or develop further this time?
Specifically, the floor border, and how it can frame a room, but this time more freely, as the rug border actually creates an physical border in itself. In general, the intersection of the two dimensional and three dimensional perception.
How would you describe the collection and the art behind it?
Architectural foremost, but also playful–in a stylistic sense, contemporary but nostalgic.
What was the inspiration behind this collection?
Multiple sources, my love for playful everyday surrealism and optical illusion, my love for mid century (neoliberal) Italian interiors, labyrinths as a room sequence, but also labyrinths as monuments by Carlos Scrapa etc.
The concept of “layering” is central to us – how do you interpret layering in your own work and in this collaboration?
Layering is also fundamental to me when creating any kind of spatial design. In this collaboration, it’s about both the design of the rugs themselves—which play with an optical illusion of three-dimensional depth—and how we present the collection, through architectural layers. It also comes through in the various framings and perspectives within the architecture of Vila Volman, the location where the collection was photographed.
What is special for you about designing rugs compared to working in other mediums?
First of all it’s a big scale, a big surface, a big canvas – that plays an important role of any space, so I see as an architectural element, as interior design and also as a statement piece in itself, all combined. So that’s special for me when designing rugs, the direct and big impact. But also the softness.
Has it been different designing for LAYERED this time?
Creatively, the process is more or less the same, even though you’re constantly developing as a designer, so in that sense, the process generally becomes easier over time, even if each new project is always a new wheel to reinvent.
However, it’s always easier the second time around in a collaboration because you know each other and each other’s visions better, so you can dive straight into the creative process and feel more comfortable being transparent with one another.
“I see the rug as an architectural element, as part of the interior design, and at the same time as an independent statement piece — all in one.”
The second collection by Teklan was launched in October 2025.
