Carrier chairs | The Press

With their generous and enveloping shapes, the Elsie chairs by APPAREIL Atelier invite you to sit in them day and night. The new collection of furniture, matured with the Reford Gardens, in Gaspésie, pays tribute to their founder, Elsie Reford, born 150 years ago.

Muriel Francoise
special collaboration

In the offices shared by the APPAREIL Architecture team in Montreal, pale wood furniture with minimalist lines await visitors charmed by the refined aesthetics of its homes. Pregnant with her first child, industrial designer Justine Dumas sat on the new Elsie chair with arms for a quiet interview. The APPAREIL Atelier brand, launched in 2018 and developed in the shadow of the well-known architecture firm in Quebec and beyond, is slowly evolving through encounters in a period not conducive to the design industry.

Since its beginnings, 10 years ago, the company founded by Kim Pariseau has considered housing with simplicity and accuracy by collaborating with local craftsmen, in particular for built-in furniture. As for generations of architects before her, it is often a project that is at the origin of a collection of furniture. Until March 13, the gallery-boutique of Mile End Bref exhibits the Piloti range in its Hygge theme dedicated to this art of living from Scandinavia. The sofas and benches were designed for the 75 BESIDE chalets to come in the Lanaudière forest. All-purpose furniture to be freely appropriated in the countryside as well as in the city.

And, from the 1^er March, a series of video capsules presented by the Collective of Canadian Creators for the fourth edition of the Studio meeting will unveil the Elsie collection imagined with the Reford Gardens, in Gaspésie. Crowned with the first name of its founder, Elsie Reford, it honors the memory of this pioneer of Canadian horticulture, born in 1872.

wide gesture

Close to the Reford Gardens since an installation in 2019 for the International Garden Festival, which allows all the audacious landscaping every summer, APPAREIL Architecture is working on the development of the restaurant Le Bufton, as well as a new terrace open next June. It was during his discussions with Alexander Reford, great-grandson of the founder and director of the Jardins de Métis, but also a collector of old chairs, that the idea of ​​designing seats for the guests of this enchanting place took hold. form.

The many classic models with bars inspire APPAREIL Atelier to create a chair at the crossroads, combining tradition and modernity, in the tradition of Thonet and Hans J. Wegner. He chose to make a contemporary gesture by doubling a bar of solid red oak with a larger diameter on the back of it thanks to a collaboration with his neighbor cabinetmaker of French origin Julien Maréchal, of L’Autre Atelier. “The curve of the backrest makes the chair welcoming,” observes Justine Dumas. To circumvent the challenge of bending (which consists of bending the wood using steam), tricky with such thick bars, he finds a plan B: assembling rounded sticks.

Just as suitable for a combination around a table as for individual use in a living room, an office, a bedroom or even a hallway to better appreciate their lines and the pronounced veining of the red oak, the chairs are comfortable and elegant while blending into the background. They open the way, in a beautiful way, to other collaborations with Quebec craftsmen ardently desired by the APPAREIL Atelier team.