THE ACT OF SITTING :
“Making a chair” struck me as so important that it is the first thing that I wanted to do when I discovered Moroccan craftsmen. As if “making a chair” was the fundamental act in any Banquettes design. How does the fact that we park our posteriors on them make chairs such an important object?
In our Western societies, it is true that we spend a lot of time on chairs: working, writing, eating, talking, etc. Chairs are the prosaic support for many of our daily activities. In many other societies, chairs do not even exist, or merely as a sign of power. Our chairs are situated somewhere between these two functions, because they are definitely useful objects as they should be, but they are also charged with symbolism, expressing other choices than just to sit down.
The idea of making iron chairs came to me from the chance meeting with the man who would make them. It is true that they are heavy, they can rust, they are cold to the touch and moreover, unlike a bed, a metal chair is rather uncommon in our culture.
However, compared with a wooden chair, I discovered how they could materialize a simple, pure gesture, the embodiment of an almost calligraphic symbol in space, an apparent lightness of writing where technique is flexible in turning ideas into reality.
Finally, for an idea, it is really comfortable.
Sit down, you will be surprised.
After the era of the chair as a “fundamental gesture” came the era of the armchair, as if I was overtaken with fatigue. A very dignified fatigue, supported by an iron carcass to prevent total collapse, but padded with down and covered in velvet to ensure gentle relaxation. In other words, a balance between contrasts, between austerity and Baroque as an omnipresent recurring theme