2023-09-10 15:41:33
Impossible to ignore his majestic presence. Assembled near the workshop where it was manufactured, the framework of the choir of Notre-Dame de Paris is the pride of the employees of Ateliers Perrault. This company founded in 1760 in Anjou was responsible for reproducing the original dating from the 13th century, using the same manufacturing methods. This involves working, as in the Middle Ages, from freshly cut wood.
A highly symbolic project for the workshop
More than 900 oaks were carefully selected with the National Forestry Office (ONF), particularly in the forests of Loches (Indre-et-Loire), Bercé (Sarthe) and Tronçais (Allier). The wooden logs were then transformed into square beams by manual squaring, using 60 axes specially made by hewers. This ancestral technique had never before been used by the workshop.
“Green wood is easier to work with but it can move a little as it dries and this must be taken into account during assembly,” explains Mathieu Gornouvel, 34, one of the twenty carpenters who worked on this very special site, pointing out half-moons engraved by them on the main trusses to better identify them, as medieval craftsmen did (1) . “It is an immense source of pride to say that this framework will last for centuries…” This highly symbolic project had a profound impact on the teams.
Bulletproof windows
The Ateliers Perrault are accustomed to prestigious commissions, from the Château de Chambord to the Invalides via the Grand Palais in Paris. In the workshops, the beauty of the creations is observed everywhere, from the framework to the carpentry, including the windows, the painting and the ironwork.
The carriage gate of the Grand Palais, currently being restored, impresses with its monumental size. “It perfectly sums up what we do,” indicates Jean-Baptiste Bonhoure, 37, president of Ateliers Perrault, bought in 2019 by the Ateliers de France group, which brings together around fifty companies serving luxury and historic monuments. “This door was made using old techniques but we added lots of invisible elements: burglar-proof device, anti-ram, smoke evacuation…” This know-how allows them, for example, to produce very elaborate bulletproof windows.
The company is looking for new recruits
If these public orders boost the artistic crafts sector, which is struggling to recruit, the company achieves half of its turnover with private orders (rich individuals, luxury brands, etc.). Stéphane Guais, a carpenter for fifteen years at Perrault, spent a week in Palm Beach (Florida) to install the interior doors and wooden ceilings of a villa belonging to one of Donald Trump’s neighbors. He will soon go to Monaco for the woodwork of a sumptuous house.
“What is a shame is that good students are systematically oriented towards long studies, he comments. But we are seeing more and more people in retraining who are looking for meaning in their work. » His colleague Marie Risselin, 27, left her medical studies, “too theoretical to work with wood. “When I was a young apprentice, people were skeptical to see a girl arrive, but today, we don’t see the difference. » The company has just launched its own academy to support these retrainings, train and attract new recruits.
A year and a half of work
“The Notre-Dame project has highlighted these professions and I hope that this will encourage vocations,” slips the president of the Ateliers Perrault. The company is not finished with the Paris cathedral. She has just completed the restoration of the belfry dating from Viollet-le-Duc, which had partly burned.
After a year and a half of work and deadlines met, the choir framework will have completely left Anjou at the end of October. “Inevitably, it will leave a great void”, confides Mathieu, the carpenter. The team will be left with a model twenty times smaller, made with passion by the company’s 25 apprentices, with the same wood as that of the frame.
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“Tell us about the wonderful experience of medieval construction that we have just had”
Joseph Canuel
Carpenter on bicycle
“I am going to leave like a pilgrim on a bicycle, from September 10 to 29, from the Ateliers Perrault to Notre-Dame de Paris to bring a small part intended for the frame of the apse (rounded part of the choir) called a leg. The idea is to show that it was entirely shaped and then transported by the hand of man. Along these 400 kilometres, I will take the opportunity to stop in schools, colleges, high schools and places like the Ballon dungeon (Sarthe), Chartres cathedral (Eure-et-Loire) or the Perche ecomuseum. (Orne). I am going to tell the wonderful experience of medieval construction that we have just had and promote crafts to young people. »
Joseph Canuel, carpenter at the Ateliers Perrault in Saint-Laurent-de-la-Plaine, will join Paris by bike to transport one of the parts of the frame of Notre-Dame. / Josselin CLAIR/PHOTOPQR/LE COURRIER DE L’OUEST/
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