These Landes chairs will join Notre-Dame de Paris for eternity

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Pride can be seen on their faces. Geneviève, the mother, Alain, the father and Sylvain, the son, who form the Bastiat family, measure this Tuesday, November 5, 2024, the challenge that they were able to take on with their 17 employees.

The company, created in Hagetmau (Landes) in 1964, by ancestors Marcelle and Joseph, will deliver on November 19 the first of three cargoes of 1,500 chairs and other benches and prayer tables for the nave of the restored Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, the reopening of which is scheduled for December 7.

Fabrication exclusive

An exclusive production straight from the workshops of this Landes know-how and the creativity of the Breton designer, Ionna Vautrinfor a “visually silent” result, she explains.

The gasoline supplied by the Ducerf group for the seat and the Gaudelas establishments for the feet and the back (both with the PEFC label) ensures a “ 100% French oak ».

Surprisingly discreet

The story of this adventure begins in the summer of 2023 when Ionna Vautrin, chosen by the “Revoir Notre-Dame de Paris” committee to design this furniture, called on Bosc, “forest” in Gascon, the high-end brand created by Sièges Bastiat: “I had never worked with them, but their reputation was well established. I contacted them, they accepted very quickly,” says the designer to whom we owe the TGV lamp.

We really became aware of this opportunity to make these chairs when people outside the company congratulated us.

The semi-industrial cabinetmaking SME, which has held the state label “living heritage company” since 2018, then launches into the manufacturing of all stages of this chair (sawing, cutting, assembly, sanding, stain, varnish, etc.) which, at first glance, surprises with its simplicity. This “discreet” aspect of the product is explained by a desire not to obscure the architecture of the Parisian site and the liturgical furniture that adorns it.

When touched, you can feel a slightly curved seat and the back of the product clearly recalls the shapes of the cathedral. Moreover, as Alain Bastiat notes, during testing within the Parisian nave, “we were able to observe that it revealed the architectural forms of Notre-Dame”.

A 100% Landes chair

Note that several other Landes companies were called upon, including the cabinetmaker Xavier Favaro from Hagetmau for the turning of the feet and bars, the Aray company in Nassiet for the wood sculpture, or even Woodstache (Capbreton) for the marking of the files with the ND and Bosc logos and finally the SAS Almeca in Saint-Paul-lès-Dax for the brass fasteners.

PEFC certification, a duty

Like the rehabilitated frames of Notre-Dame, the furniture made by the Landes company has PEFC certification, the forest certification recognition program, which highlights sustainably managed French forests and from which the wood for the chairs comes. .

The national president of PEFC, Christine de Neuvilleenthusiastic about this cooperation, was delighted with this presentation “of which French companies can be proud”. For this mayor of a small village in Haute-Vienne, this certification work “has a lot of meaning in shedding light on French know-how”.

Another reward,a definite spotlight for the department des Landes and the town of Hagetmau. Formerly the European capital of headquarters, the Chaloisse city, despite a bygone golden age, continues to produce highly qualitative products of which Bastiat Seats are one of the guardians.

The Bastiat family will be traveling for the first delivery of the furniture in a few days. A presence on the Notre-Dame-place-Jean-Paul-II square, to observe “that the unloading takes place without damage”, assures Alain Bastiat.

It will also be a piece of the Landes which will enter for eternity into one of the most emblematic monuments of our country.

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