Choosing wood for a piece of furniture is a lot like choosing colours for a painting,” says Vincent Roy, whose reverence for wood has not even remotely dimmed with time—or fame, for that matter. The Pondicherry-based Frenchman is regarded among India’s most sought-after furniture makers, routinely commissioned by top architects and interior designers to create customised pieces, as well as to furnish cafes, boutiques and consulates.
Pondicherry Furniture-Maker: Finding Home Here
Roy first came to India in 2008, to assist cabinetmaker Patrick Laffourcade in the restoration work of Notre Dame des Anges, an old church located in the French quarter of Pondicherry. Born and raised in Cognac, he admits to a love-at-first-sight moment when he first set foot here 11 years ago, as a 21-year-old backpacker: “I fell in love with the millions of possibilities that India offers. After a year, I decided to explore the rest of Asia, and travelled and worked as a carpenter in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia. But even after all that time, I missed India deeply and finally decided to return and set up my home and studio here.”
Pondicherry Furniture-Maker: Pace of Profession
Roy is hugely excited—and mildly baffled—at the pace at which carpentry is progressing in India. “Suddenly, it seems as if everyone wants to be an architect and designer! On a serious note, the engineering industry here is rapidly developing a wider choice of advanced carpentry tools and machines, but it is the variety of crafts and techniques that make it such an exciting place to work in. Rajasthan alone has so many crafts, and there are so many talented hands ready and willing to collaborate.”
Pondicherry Furniture-Maker: Creating a Distinctive Signature
He mostly works with antique beams sourced from old Tamilian homes, and Burma teak used by the British and the Chettiars (a Tamilian merchant community). Though Pondicherry has a long history of native woodworking and thrives on colonial reproductions, Roy’s works have a distinctive signature that speak of a modern, minimalistic design, wrought in uncomplicated lines rooted in Scandinavian furniture design from 1920 to 1970. Everything that he creates is built with traditional joinery—sanded and polished, by hand, to a fine finish.
These days, he is busy experimenting with an ancient Japanese technique shou sugi ban, which involves preserving wood by first ring the timber to a charred surface, and then treating it with special oils. Shou sugi ban is a time-consuming process—one that requires gentle hands and a lot of patience, but rewards its practitioner with indescribable pride and joy. Undoubtedly, there are incomparable moments of peace and evolution to be found in these traditional craftsmanship practices, but for Roy everything mostly comes back to India: “I feel free here.”
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