RUGS

RUGS

1930s

Donated by Pasadena Rug Mart

The Pasadena Rug Mart, specializing in Oriental rugs, was founded in 1932 by Armenian refugees to Pasadena, the Evkhanians, who built an oriental rug showroom onto an existing Craftsman house. In 1986, Evkhanian sold the family business to Abbas Firouzi, a third generation of rug masters from Iran. After the passing of the family patriarch and business owner, maintaining the rug mart proved to be difficult, and doors closed after 85 years of business. From one family to another, Pasadena Rug Mart was a beacon of Pasadena’s immigrant communities. The neon sign likely dates from the establishing of the showroom in the 1930s. The sign may seem aesthetically simple, but culturally it evokes a larger story of diaspora and labor of the Armenian Genocide survivors that relocated and rebuilt their livelihood in Los Angeles County.