When Gildas le Bars became a production manager at the same Montréal design studio that employed Alexandre Joncas, the two men discovered a connection and an opportunity.
Building on their backgrounds--visual arts and industrial design for Alexandre and communications/team and project management for Gildas--the two began to lay the groundwork for what would become Studio d'Armes.
Since the studio's founding in 2016, it has brought a new and enigmatic character to the Canadian design scene. Through extensive research, fine engineering, and experimentation in materiality, tension, light, and space, Studio d'Armes has produced, in its short history, diverse modern and vital luminaires such as the RA wall sconce and the Archiproducts Design Award winning Etat-des-Lieux suspension light collection.
Light is a force to which Joncas admits he is "fiercely connected," and the pair's devotion to the power of light itself is found not only in their work, but in their work environment. The essential truth that the light in their creative space "brings us energy and can render everything around us magical or ugly" no doubt figured heavily into their decision to move Studio d'Armes from the streets of Montréal to the woods in the heart of Quebec's Laurentian mountains.
Free and inspired by their mountain surroundings, le Bars and Joncas maintain connections and collaborations within Montréal design community. This best-of-both-worlds approach results in designs that are brilliantly conceptual, breathtakingly artful, yet still grounded and substantial.
