Craft Chronicles

Cra Chronicles

For centuries, the fabled Parisian enclave of Faubourg Saint-Antoine has counted as a major epicentre for the art of cabinetmaking, a tradition which is still flourishing today.

By Je rey T Iverson Photography by Emmanuel Fradin

A glimpse into Bernard Mau ret’s workshop showcases his contemporary geometric aesthetic that harks back to earlier forms

Opposite: the Dissidi atelier is a meeting of mixed materials that contribute to the time-tested restoration process

In the realm of handcra ed luxury goods, the savoirfaire of French artisans is globally revered. Yet in recent years, the perenniality of French cra smanship has been threatened by retirements and outsourcing of workshops, a situation that has seen titans like LVMH and Cartier scrambling to create their own seedbed schools to preserve their pool of skilled artisans. Meanwhile, one sector has endured and evolved much as it always has – ébénisterie , the art of ne French cabinetmaking.

For centuries, the profession has been rooted in the same Right Bank Parisian neighbourhood, an area known as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Today, it’s a sanctuary not only for the greatest masters of classical French cabinetmaking styles, but for a new generation imagining the furniture of tomorrow.

To appreciate the Faubourg’s role in the flourishing of French cabinetmaking, one need simply tour the jaw-dropping creations throughout the Palace of Versailles, from Marie-Antoinette’s standing jewel coffer (a marvel of wood veneering in amaranth, sycamore, and tulipwood) to Louis XV’s cylinder bureau (a paragon of artistry which took nearly a decade to craft). The remarkable technical ingenuity behind such works is a reflection of the extraordinary freedoms their creators enjoyed in the 18th century simply because they worked in Faubourg Saint-Antoine, then a small agglomeration just outside the city walls on the estate of the SaintAntoine-des-Champs abbey. For in 1657, the abbey negotiated a special exemption from the king for all artisans working on its lands, freeing them from the stifling control of the Parisian craft guilds, which since the Middle Ages had taxed artisans and dictated how and with what materials they could practise their craft. In the words of historian Jacques Hillairet, that precious dispensation “allowed the cabinetmakers of Faubourg Saint Antoine to embrace their creativity, to be inspired by furniture styles from China, to create furniture with exotic

Opposite, from top: Pierre Strack, co-founder of Straure, poses with pieces in progress; a selection of tables and chairs by Ludovic Avenel

island woods, tortoiseshell inlays, ornamentation with brass filets, and veneers in walnut, cedar and ebony”.

In their freedom and capacity for innovation, the Faubourg cabinetmakers would translate the rage for antiquity that followed the discoveries at Pompeii into the neoclassical Louis XV and XVI styles, and the Egyptomania that followed Napoleon’s campaign to Cairo into the French Empire style. By the 19th century, the neighbourhood was the country’s biggest furniture-manufacturing centre. For the graduates of France’s premier school of arts and crafts – École Boulle, founded in the Faubourg in 1886 in honour

Left: inside Bernard Mau ret’s workshop

of Louis XIV’s grand master of marquetry André-Charles Boulle – the neighbourhood offered infinite opportunities. But since the late 20th century, soaring rents and the rise of industrial manufacturers abroad have seen the largest workshops shuttered, ending the era of mass production here. For the torchbearers of the Faubourg’s cabinetmaking tradition, be their passion for classical or contemporary styles, only one path forward remains today – that of excellence.

In the Cour de l’Ours, a cobblestoned cul-de-sac dating back to the Middle Ages, Pierre Strack and Philippe Faure founded the atelier Straure in 1984. Convinced that “the higher you rise in the pyramid of technique, the more work you will have”, they set out to distinguish themselves through an encyclopaedic mastery of the styles that won the Faubourg fame. Sure enough, with rare skillsets gained studying with old masters and at École Boulle, they soon attracted a global clientele. Collectors in Germany, Switzerland and London send Straure Art Deco or Louis XVI-era

furnishings to be restored – chairs and chiffoniers which often originated in the Faubourg. “To see a work that was created under Louis XVI return to the place of its birth after almost 250 years,” muses Strack, “it’s very moving.” Mementos of the most exquisite pieces to pass through the atelier adorn the walls – copies of headboards, moulds of sculpted furniture legs ... “When you want to create something new that is a pure representation of a style, we have this fabulous database to draw on,” Strack explains. Staure’s creations range from a set of Louis XV-style gilded settees and armchairs for the Paris mansion of a Qatari Prince to a replica of Marie Antoinette’s bed for the American ambassador’s residence.

For all the savoir-faire such creations embody, Staure was distinguished by the French government several years ago as a Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant, or “Living Heritage Company”. Among the first Faubourg ateliers to receive that honour was Dissidi, founded by a family of Italian cabinetmakers in 1911. With a full-time team of nine, Dissidi undertakes projects for leading interior design agencies from Cabinet Alberto Pinto in Paris to Winch Design in London, creating bespoke furnishings for palace hotels and palatial homes. Yet what truly sets Dissidi apart is its capacity to handcraft perfect replicas of history’s furniture masterworks. Only recently, Dissidi recreated the circa-1680 Mazarin desk (an exemplar of Boulle marquetry with engraved brass over black-stained pear wood, named after the Sun King’s minister Cardinal Mazarin) as well as the extraordinary medal showcase built in 1732 for Louis XV, boasting ornately sculpted solid bronze legs, an exterior of intricate violet wood

marquetry, and gilded medallions with tortoiseshell backgrounds. Such works are encapsulations of living heritage – that of Dissidi’s cabinetmakers, but also their entire network of collaborators across the Faubourg, from marquetry specialists to gilders. “There is a special synergy we benefit from by being situated in this historic neighbourhood, which is part of the richness of French craftsmanship,” says François Illy, Dissidi’s spokesman. “Today ‘French art de vivre’ has become a hashtag, but behind that are real people – artists and artisans without whom it wouldn’t exist.”

To acquire their art, most of Dissidi’s cabinetmakers trained with one of two institutions – the École Boulle or the Compagnons du Devoir, an artisan apprenticeship programme that dates back to the Middle Ages yet has trained some of the Faubourg’s most contemporary cabinetmakers. Take Bernard Mauffret, who joined the Compagnons at 17 to become a carpenter. The passion for descriptive geometry he developed while restoring

François Illy of Dissidi

– François Illy

There is a special synergy we bene t from by being situated in this historic neighbourhood, which is part of the richness of French cra smanship”

the complex timber framing of cathedrals and windmills continues to inform his work today as cabinetmaker to interior designers like Pierre Yovanovitch.

Mauffret is renowned for an ability to shape wood into impossible forms, such as the tangle of curling, coiling arms atop the coat rack After Thonet, now owned by Paris’s museum of decorative arts. Using an innovative wood-steaming technique, Mauffret made real what began as a fanciful 3D model by designer Mathieu Lehanneur. Indeed, Mauffret is a cabinetmaker willing to employ any tool, traditional or cutting edge, to craft dreams into reality. He points to a table in white-veined ebony he’s just finished for a Fifth Avenue apartment, whose top he covered by hand in white goatskin parchment and embedded by digital router with brass stars cut by electrical discharge machining. “There is this idea that technology is the enemy of craftsmanship,” he says. “Not at all – it’s by integrating new technologies into their craft that artisans enrich their profession and project it into the future.”

Mauffret is situated in the Faubourg’s Cour de l’Industrie, a complex of 50 artisan workshops built in 1850. Just 500 metres away, in 2008 a modern iteration of the traditional artisans’ complex was built in metal and glass at 8 passage Brûlon, mixing craft workshops with offices for media, tech and design professionals. Here, the young École Boulle graduate Ludovic Avenel founded his atelier after bursting onto the French design scene in 2007 as laureate of the Liliane Bettencourt Award for Hand Intelligence. Avenel won for a pair of Art Deco-style chests of drawers representing the past and future of cabinetmaking – one in ebony, slate and shagreen leather, the other in cardboard, aluminium and rubber. “Any project can involve the most traditional techniques or the most innovative ones,” he says. “But the same desire drives all my work – to bring art, beauty and poetry into people’s daily lives.”

Avenel is ever incorporating elegant, innovative materials and forms into his creations, from his Bureau à Effeuiller (a desk made with an ingenious supple wood, whose top opens like a garment to reveal inner compartments) to tables inspired by organic motifs like an eclipsed moon, a halved clementine, or stones piled on the beach. Avenel’s enormous talent has opened up doors for cabinetmaking in new sectors, collaborating with watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre, trunk-maker Moynat and shoe designer Christian Louboutin. He even creates oak veneer interiors for automobiles. Ironically, in his outpouring of creativity, Avenel has become a torchbearer of tradition. “This neighbourhood was the site of a fabulous convergence of creative minds, and tremendous innovations,” he says. “That’s why I wanted to work here, you can still feel that energy today – Faubourg Saint-Antoine has kept its soul.”

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