OnFlooring | Floor Decor Made Easy

Frederick Walton discovered linoleum and patented its manufacturing process in 1863. It is quite remarkable that a product, discovered in the days of gas lights and horse-drawn carriages, is still used in applications for which it was originally designed, such as flooring in health care and educational facilities.

Impressive References
Over 100 years and more linoleum has found its way in an incredible large number of buildings all over the world; the dining hall flooring for the famous Alcatraz prison in San Francisco, CA, the elegant White House in Washington, DC, or Buckingham palace in London, the Kremlin in Moscow, the German Reichstag , the Sorbonne University in Paris and even Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam (1938) featured linoleum, Also today many of the new public buildings world wide are installed with Marmoleum, from the new opera house in Oslo or the latest tribal art museum from Jean Nouvelle in Paris. Marmoleum remains a classic that is loved by architects because of its authenticity and versatility.

Bauhaus Institute
One of the expressions of modernism in the arts, crafts and architecture was created through the German Bauhaus institute, which settled in Dessau in 1925. Bauhaus, for many, is the origin of modern architecture that spread from Europe to North America and all over the world. A Forbo Marmoleum classic - “Berlin red” - still can be seen in the restored Bauhaus.

Natural Raw Materials
Marmoleum is a natural floor made from 97% natural raw materials, 70% of which are rapidly renewable, along with a 43% recycled content. The key raw materials used in its production include linseed oil, which comes from the flax plant seeds, wood flour as production waste from controlled forestry plantations and jute, a crop whose fibers provide the material for the membrane onto which the linoleum is calendared.

Natural Habitat
What makes Marmoleum special is that it is created entirely from raw materials obtained from their natural habitat right where they grow and renew, often in just 12 months time. Jute and flax are annual crops that can be harvested just like wheat or corn. Extracting rosin is a continuous process, while wood flour, a waste material from the timber industry, is derived from European production forests. Limestone is available in abundance.

Biodegrade
All this makes Marmoleum a natural floor covering, one that, after a long 30-plus year life cycle, can start all over again. Marmoleum can be scrapped, since it’s biodegrade. Alternatively, controlled incineration of Marmoleum delivers a higher caloric value and creates thermal energy that outweighs the energy used during production. This demonstrates the full life cycle circle from which nature ultimately benefits.