“While I was driving around Paris with my prototype machine, I saw people watching me change… As if I had a beautiful pair of designer shoes! “This is something I hadn’t thought about.”says Paul de Livron, 32, sitting in a wheelchair that he maneuvers with an agile hand, to the fiery rhythm of his story. We are at the Maison & Objet show, which closed its doors on September 9, in Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis), where this Arts et Métiers engineer, who became paraplegic in 2013 after a hiking accident, is looking, like any other young creative person, partners to mass produce future models of your design.
His chair is so beautiful, with the profile of a racing car and the wings drawn on the wheels, that curious people flock to his stand. He has already designed several wooden wheelchairs called “Apollo,” including the model III – with armrests carved from charred oak from the Notre-Dame de Paris fire – which was delivered in September 2023 to Pope Francis, who sponsored his business. .
“The idea came to me in India, at a Mother Teresa dispensary where I volunteeredexplains Paul de Livron. I was lucky with my wheelchair, when there were only three chairs to transport several dozen people with mobility disabilities to the place of the meal. I decided to design a lower-cost wheelchair and share the formula on the Internet. » His first version of Apollo is made up of forty-six elements cut by hand from okoumé plywood, a wood resistant to water and humidity, and weighs 9.1 kilos.
The Apollo IV, made of birch plywood and weighing 7.5 kilos, allowed it to tackle the cobblestones of the capital during the 10 kilometers of the Marathon for All, on August 10, the eve of the closing of the Olympic Games from Paris. “I don’t pretend that it is a tool for athletes, but it is an ingenious wooden armchair, light and resistant enough to be able, thanks to its manufacturing as simplified as possible, be deployed in disadvantaged areas, while a titanium and carbon fiber wheelchair costs 12,000 euros”says Paul de Livron.
It is to the cane, the most humble of everyday accessories, to which the Japanese Keiji Takeuchi dedicated an exhibition this spring at the Milan Triennale. This is how “Canes and Canes” was born, for which he invited seventeen other designers to reinvent this object as old as time, both a primitive utensil and a symbol, depending on the era, of power or wealth.
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