Atelier Viollet is proud to support the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club. The 41st Annual Kips Bay Decorators show house is open from May 7th to June 4th. The Show House receives as many as 20,000 guests annually from across the nation. Since its inception, the Show House has raised over $17 million for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. Whilst there be sure to pick up a copy of this years Journal.
Jean-Paul Viollet is fond of challenges. He loves putting his team to the test. But as challenges go, this next one is exceptional. To successfully complete it, he will need to reach deep into the collective wisdom of the group. He is standing now at a table in his office, turning the brittle, yellowed pages of a book he discovered online a few years back. The text, written in his native French, was published in 1762. The subject: parchment.
He’s not looking for information. He’s simply pointing out the material’s fabled past. Without it, there would be very little recorded human history prior to the Industrial Revolution. The Dead Sea Scrolls were preserved on parchment. The Magna Carta, too. Even drafts of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Viollet’s parchment will not safeguard any words, however. It will be used to create a deluxe, one-of-a-kind room in the Park Avenue apartment of a New York City hedge fund manager. A “jewel box,” as Jean-Paul describes it. “Everything you see—except for the floor and the ceiling—will be covered in parchment.” That includes the four rounded corners, the baseboards, the crown molding, and the trim surrounding the windows and the doors.
To Viollet’s knowledge, such delicate handiwork has only been accomplished a few times in the last hundred years. In May, Architectural Digest published a photo illustrating one classic example, executed by the great Jean-Michel Frank in 1929. Another appears in a hardcover tribute to the interior designer Frances Elkins.
Working with parchment and parchment furniture is nothing new to Viollet. His parchment furniture designs have included everything from tables to beds to cabinets and screens for a quarter century. He has even employed it as a wall covering. But never before has he had to apply it to the undulating surface of a crown molding. To accomplish this feat, he will have to summon a lifetime’s worth of expertise in woodworking, adhesives and the fickle nature of New York weather. Parchment—in this case, the cream-colored skins of 250 goats—is prone to respond to changes in temperature and humidity.
To counter such variables, Viollet will construct the moldings out of basswood, a timber noted for its stability. For each decision like that one, however, there are a dozen more. In order to precisely assemble the finished room, panel by panel, in Atelier Viollet’s Brooklyn workshop, the 100-square-foot original space had to be mapped with laser measurements. “There is no margin for error,” says Jean-Paul. “At most, you’re working with a sixteenth of an inch.”
That means the moldings and panels must fit together like puzzle pieces. If just one is off by a sliver, the whole project may be jeopardized. “We have to control each process from A to Z, monitor every step to minimize potential problems,” explains Jean-Paul. “We don’t want any surprises at the end. Once you start the installation, you cannot move or turn anything because everything interlocks.”
Some craftsmen might consider that a nightmare. For Jean-Paul, it’s a thrill. “It’s very rare that you’re treated with such a challenge,” he says. “We will have problems, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be a unique room.”
This particular parchment panelling project is under construction in the workshop as we type. We’ll show you the results here on the blog in the coming weeks.
Below are images of previously installed rooms in dyed and natural parchment panels.
Marquetry and inlay furniture requires a battery of tools, some dating back to the Roman Empire; others as new as today’s lasers. Justly revered artisans use near-surgical precision to cut and fit designs of various materials such as wood veneers, metals, bone and mother-of-pearl onto the surfaces of our furniture. Inlay is the embedding of these same designs into grooves carved into a piece. It can be maddeningly time-consuming, but utterly stunning.
See more of Atelier Viollet’s Marquetry & inlay furniture.
Atelier Viollet’s gypsum cabinet is featured on the World Interior Design Network website:
“Crafted from Swiss pear wood, the new artistic cabinets with gypsum veneers feature pearl-like smooth panels that cover the doors, which are carved from a soft sulfate mineral known as gypsum. Designed innovatively with the artistic use of gypsum, the cabinet makes a dominant presence in the surrounding. Featuring simple lines and straight cuts in its structure, the cabinet exudes the spirit of liveliness. Created elegantly, the new cabinet with gypsum veneers can add artistic charm to the aesthetic of any décor, modern as well as traditional.” (Source)
Learn more about Atelier Viollet’s gypsum furniture.
It’s a marvel to behold, a sleek black cabinet expertly crafted from Swiss pear wood and stained a deep, dark ebony—like the keys on a grand piano. That’s not what makes it special, though. Cast your eyes instead on the pearly panels that cover the doors. They’re carved from a soft sulfate mineral known as gypsum.
It’s not what you’d call a precious stone. In fact, it’s commonly used in the manufacture of wallboard, fertilizer, even some foods. The ancient Egyptians ground gypsum into a powder to make the mortar for their pyramids. After the great London fire of 1666, the King of France insisted that it be applied on wooden walls as a flame retardant. (Hence Plaster of Paris.) And in the years that followed, the translucent mineral has acquired magical powers. One of the more powerful crystals in the New Age movement, it’s hailed as an antidote to negative energy. None of that inspired Jean-Paul Viollet to use gypsum in his latest creation, however. No, he was drawn to it because of his profound admiration for Jean-Michel Frank.
“I am not by any means trying to compare myself to him,” he says, “because he was a genius. But as a craftsman, I’ve always been impressed by his choice of materials.”
Born in Paris in 1895, Frank grew up to become “the most influential designer of the 1930s,” according to Architectural Digest. He moved from Paris to Argentina to New York City, drawing not only artists, actors, and authors to his client list, but also Rockefellers. His work—often photographed by Man Ray—was heralded worldwide. At least one of Frank’s works—a bronze cabinet that appears on the front cover of a 400-page tribute to the designer that was published by Rizzoli Books and authored by the art historian Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier—featured panels made of gypsum.
That cabinet was the inspiration for Viollet’s new masterpiece. Years ago, the Brooklyn furniture maker ordered a few samples of gypsum with the hope of incorporating the material into one of his own designs. But one thing led to another and the project was postponed. And then, not long ago, Atelier Viollet received a few inquiries regarding gypsum. Clearly, it was time for a revival. And so began the six-month challenge of learning how to utilize the material.
Gypsum is not hard to locate. It’s mined on every continent in the world. But the unique texture—the enchanting faults and alluring striations—varies significantly from one quarry to the next. After reviewing a number of samples—some from as far away as Morocco—Viollet settled on a supplier here in the U.S.
His next trial? Figuring out how to process the multi-layered stone. The gypsum arrived in Brooklyn in great big slabs. The Atelier Viollet team had to learn how to slice it into thin veneers. After many hours and countless saw blades, the team moved on to testing the effectiveness of myriad adhesives. They had to find a way to firmly bond the stone to a wood substrate, a way that would stand up to all sorts of variables involving temperature shifts and moisture in the air.
When at last they saw the fruits of their labor, they could not help but be entranced by gypsum’s seductive charm. “We are amazed at the visual projection, the luminosity,” says Jean-Paul Viollet. “It’s a very talkative material. It conveys a lot of life.”
Seated now in his lab, he reaches out to pick up a piece of alabaster, gypsum’s more celebrated cousin. “It’s much more quiet, more subdued,” he says.
And so, with this cabinet, Viollet has accomplished what he set out to do. He has created a thing of rare beauty while mastering the use of yet another material.
In the end, it seems, Jean-Michel Frank’s dance with gypsum was all too fleeting. Was it because the material was hard to find? Was it because it was difficult to process? “I don’t know,” Viollet replies. Perhaps it was because Frank died too soon. In 1941, at age 46, he committed suicide. It’s unclear if he ever had a chance to try his hand at gypsum again after making that one cabinet in 1938. But Viollet certainly will. He already has an order for two bedside tables made of gypsum and bronze.
