Your Archipel collection merges bronze casting and glassblowing in pieces like the Madeira side table. How did your respective backgrounds at the Macheret foundry and La Rochère glassworks inform your approach to combining these two ancient fire arts?

Being integrated into the glassmaking and foundry workshops for a year allowed us to establish a close connection with each other’s expertise and materials. With this in mind, we engaged in a dynamic of constant experimentation, thinking with our hands and playing with the constraints and processes specific to the materials. Our experiments focused on the respective histories of glassmaking and foundry. For example, the La Rochère glassworks is located in a rural area surrounded by numerous oak forests. The Madeira table is molded from this local oak, both for its glass legs and its bronze top. The design of our objects has never been subjective: it is born before our eyes, driven by the history of craftsmanship and rooted in their territories.

The Bacupari lamp, through its shape, evokes Art Nouveau, as if the two globes were fruits growing on a branch. Similarly, Art Nouveau was born in Nancy, in the same region as the glassworks. In keeping with the glassmaking process, the two globes do not have exactly the same shape, reflecting the vernacular expertise of the glassmakers, guided by their breath. After all, they are human: how could they be forced to produce strictly symmetrical and austere forms?

The two materials, bronze and glass, are deeply linked, both by their history and their natural origins. Derived from the arts of fire, they share combustion as their point of origin. Wood, sand, air, and tools are elements they share. Air, which fuels the combustion of the wood, transforms the sandy texture of the glass and the metallic alloy of the ingot. The glassmaker’s breath, transmitted by his cane or his crack, allows him to work the molten glass. This same air powers the pneumatic tools needed to shape the cooled bronze. The sand used for the temporary foundry molds comes from the same quarry as that used in the composition of the glass: Fontainebleau sand. This sand, prized for its fineness, evokes the sand moved by the wind to form the dunes of imaginary beaches on paradise islands. This is why we set our project on this imaginary island, made of will and dreams.

Many similarities unite these materials, their processes, and their stories. It has been extremely enriching to establish two centers of study to connect them, bring out the best in them, and create hybrid skills. We have found that this creative process is an excellent way to move crafts away from the folkloric register in which they still too often operate (more than 80% of their time), whether in restoration or the manufacture of everyday objects.

Before working with Vincent Dubourg, what were your design sensibilities, and how did this formative experience transform your vision of creating objects that transcend pure functionality?

Working alongside Vincent Dubourg, a true apprenticeship was built. His world profoundly influenced me and greatly guided my subsequent career. It was a master/apprentice relationship, in the spirit of medieval or Renaissance workshops. The proximity to the workshop, the daily experimentation, and the direct contact with the materials naturally encouraged me to pursue this path. Vincent continues to mentor me today. This experience truly taught me to master materials, both in their psychological and mechanical dimensions, two aspects that, in my opinion, are intimately linked. By listening to the material, one can achieve wonderful things, but it requires great attention and a refined sensitivity. This, above all, is what I learned in Vincent Dubourg’s studio.

I’ve never been a prodigy, but I’ve always maintained a strong connection with materials. Since I was very young, I’ve struggled to express myself through so-called “classical” means; so, I express myself through materials. This has always been vital to me. As a child, I created a world for myself through my creations. I built wooden airplanes, rockets, cars, boats… all sorts of objects. What mattered to me wasn’t so much the result or the technical success, but the simple act of making. In an almost primitive way, it was a fundamental need: to put my boundless curiosity to work. These inventions, often imperfect, equipped with mechanisms that worked only partially (or not at all), gradually led me to understand that what mattered most to me wasn’t the primary or utilitarian function of the objects I created, but the very fact of having a project that I was passionate about every morning. Through this journey, and through my work alongside Vincent Dubourg, I understood that what drives me is not the mechanical, literal, or utilitarian function of objects, but rather their psychological and sensory function.

What detail or specific element of your glass-metal pieces do you find most relevant in challenging our expectations about the behavior and interaction of materials?

On the one hand, I strive to restore the naturalness of materials. I oppose the creation of identical, perfectly smooth forms, which, for me, are completely devoid of soul. Just as I did when I was a child and created objects that functioned only in my imagination, I try to experiment, to use the flaws, imperfections, and spontaneity of materials to create shapes and finishes that are meaningful to me. It’s a way of moving away from the traditional use of materials.

I firmly believe in establishing a genuine connection, both physical and emotional, with each piece that leaves the workshop. I make approximately 70% of the objects myself, in my studio, and the remaining 30% is created in collaboration with trusted artisans, always attentive and in direct contact with the various production centers. I invest myself fully in the production process, in a manner that is both artistic and artisanal: each object bears the mark of my hand, my expertise, and that of the artisans with whom I work. The pieces thus become the fruit of a constant dialogue between them and me.

What detail or feature of your Archipel collection are you most proud of technically, and what is the story behind its development?

I’m probably more proud of the process than the purely technical details. What matters to me is to design an object by considering, from the outset, the manufacturing processes, the gestures, the constraints of the materials, and the associated expertise. Rather than drawing an “ideal” form and then adapting it to technical reality, I choose to design objects in and through technique.

What I’m proud of is successfully integrating these technical considerations from the very first stroke, the very moment the object takes shape on paper. This approach doesn’t hinder creativity; on the contrary, it’s often where inspiration is born. Knowing that a detail will arise from a certain tool, a firing constraint, or a specific artisan’s gesture gives me creative ideas and directions to explore. This way of doing things seems natural to me and consistent with my overall approach: it creates an organic link between the intention of the drawing, the material, the gesture and the final result. It also allows me to stay as close as possible to the thinking of the designer that I am, and to what I want to convey through my objects: a sincere attention to reality, to making, to the origin of the materials, and to the human hand that transforms them.