Marquetry workers, wood turners, coopers, varnishers, gilders, upholsterers, sculptors, ornamentalists… so many woodworking professions that seem buried under a layer of dust. Yet they have everything to do with cabinetmaking, a more refined art than carpentry, light years away from what Ingvar Kamprad put on the shelves of Ikea, identical, functional and economical furniture. What Alexandre Cecchi designs and manufactures are pieces of art that enhance precious wood species and stand the test of time without fading.

With the tip of his pencil, he imagined them. Then he modeled the material, he shaped his chimera so that it could take form. Like a musician who would play with harmonic vibrations, the craftsman connects living wood fibers, hollows out rosettes, draws medallions and creates veneers decorated with curls. Alexandre is a wood genius who dreams of perfection and realizes the work.

Training differently, an inspiration for Quebec?

“Cabinetmaking… it was quite vague for me at first, and what led me to it is a mystery!” admits Alexandre with an amused air. “Like many young people looking for their path, I was undecided.” At eighteen, he was far from suspecting the place that this very special profession would occupy in his life, and the years he would devote to it.

"After graduating in traditional cabinetmaking, I began my Tour de France within the Fédération compagnonnique des métiers du bâtiment. It is a very old institution, whose origins date back more than a millennium. It is a practical extension of teaching, based on an ancestral form of transmitting knowledge from experienced masters." A bit like an internship in a company with us, except that... four to six years are necessary before being accepted as a companion, and that we embody this function for life. "We commit to sharing what we have learned with the following links."

This training model is also decidedly more intimate. “A city, a year, a job and a personal project that synthesizes the skills learned. The further we go, the more complex the model becomes.

You really have to be passionate, it's very demanding. During the day, you're a salaried worker, in a company. Then you go into the foyer, a shared accommodation for several trade companies involved in the journeyman system. The workers dine together in collars, ties and jackets. It's a respect for the table, for oneself and for others, a dedicated, almost sacred moment. Then in the evening, we work on technical drawings, we tackle new problems, and we refine our model. Everyone has a chance, but eight or nine people out of ten leave before the end."

The brotherhood, with its Harry Potter feel and Hogwarts-style tables, praises the profession of worker, but also the learning of interpersonal skills. Beyond the discovery of different techniques and working methods across the regions, the trip is a real life journey, which trains the student to become a professional, and the itinerant (this is the term used to refer to the many trips) to become an accomplished man. "The profession becomes a vector of values".

Becoming an entrepreneur

Having become a foreman at the prestigious Maison Dissidi in the equally famous Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the young man then dedicated himself to the tedious replicas of 18th century furniture, those of the Louvre or Versailles for example. Then, Parisian life being what it is, he decided to weigh anchor and trust life. It was in the heart of Centre-du-Québec that he moored in 2017, when the CV he had thrown into the sea was received on the other side of the ocean by Dominique Repetti, owner of the Ébéniste d'art workshop. Talented, Alexandre quickly became his partner.

But he also has a lot of ideas, and in the spring of 2018, he began to put them forward in his own name. He founded Cecchi . In all humility, he insists: "as in any profession, you have to be passionate. You don't invent yourself as an artist. It's an overused word. Basically, the training must be technical. Then, with all this toolbox, you can eventually do something creative. I am above all a furniture designer."

“There was this first patron who put a wad of $50,000 on the desk for me to make contemporary consoles in his entrance hall, made of Santos rosewood, which are delicate to make. He trusted me 100%. Thanks to him, I was able to start putting together a portfolio with real images of my vision that combines French traditions and new aesthetics.”

The master cabinetmaker handles the art of beauty as he refines technique. He carries within him years of tradition, which he manages to transmute. When he works, he is in a meditative state of exceptional contemplation and concentration. "What fascinates me is being able to express myself through wood, to put my years of apprenticeship into it, but also to pour out my dreams and my soul, everything that cannot be said with the voice."