for the return to worship, the cathedral is adorned with flamboyant liturgical furniture
The high altar of Guillaume Bardet
In his workshop, in Dieulefit in Drôme, the designer Guillaume Bardet designed the five pieces of liturgical furniture, the models of which he presents here at the end of 2023: the imposing bronze high altar replaces the one destroyed by the fall of the vault in 2019. Its presence must be impressive: “It’s a rock, but it stands out without clashing with the minerality that surrounds it,” he explains. Guillaume Bardet designed the other rooms “in a play of balance and force with the altar”: the cathedra (episcopal seat), the ambo (left pulpit), the tabernacle and the baptistery.
Bronze springs from fire
At the foundry of the Barthélémy Arts company, in Crest (Drôme), the metal molten at 1,200°C is poured into a plaster mold insulated in a sort of can. The bronze then takes the place of a wax model of the requested part which melts inside the mold. This is how the six plaques making up the altar were made. Once cooled and before being assembled, they pass into the hands of a carver worker who sands down the irregularities and reinforces the “scratched, like skin bearing scars” texture desired by the artist.
The 1,500 “silent” chairs by Ionna Vautrin
In spring 2024, designer Ionna Vautrin presents the solid oak chair she designed for the cathedral, at the Bosc company, a “chair maker” in the Landes. “I had to take on an industrial heritage challenge,” she rejoices. Indeed, this chair, light but comfortable, can be attached to its neighbors, stacked, and allowed to lean on your elbows to pray. » The bars lighten it and respond symbolically to the columns of the bays. The benches and the prie-dieu are made in the same spirit.
A marble liturgical tray
This 200 m2 ensemble took place at the crossing of the transept to support the main altar. Its square slabs measuring 65 cm on each side were cut in “blue from Hainaut, a black stone from Belgium and a beige stone from Moleanos from Portugal,” explains Thibault Durant des Aulnois, project manager for the company H. Chevalier. This arrangement, identical to the previous one, will however be reversible: the marble is supported by a concrete structure and a metal “grid” of eleven tonnes of steel, made by the Baudin-Châteauneuf company, in the Loiret.
