There is a special synergy we benefit from by being situated in this historic neighbourhood, which is part of the richness of French craftsmanship” – François Illy 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 blackstained 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 Left: a gold ornament recently restored by the Dissidi team Opposite: François Illy of Dissidi 78 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
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 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.” CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 79
