Prakrit

The large hall on the ground floor of the Centre for Scientific Research, earlier used for researching ferro-cement technology, now houses one of the work spaces of Prakrit, the wood working unit created by Danish Aurovilian Torkil Dantzer a few years ago. The place is filled with finished table tops, legs and stands. Outside, you’ll find the wood planing machines and large stacks of sawn logs. “My showroom is in the Janaki shop in Pondicherry,” says Torkil. “But it has limited space, so sometimes my clients come here.”

Stacked against a wall are two large separation panels with a carving of the Tree of Life. “They are for my upcoming house,” explains Torkil. Anther panel shows an intricate tile-pattern carving. “I was always fascinated by the complex geometric patterns you see on Muslim tiles. I am a mathematician by education and I wondered if it is possible to create a pattern which never repeats itself. An American mathematician had found a solution in 1966, using 20,426 different tiles. Other mathematicians tried to reduce that number. The solution was found in 1974 by English mathematician Roger Penrose, who proved that you only need two different tiles to create a pattern which never repeats itself. Using his formula I created a pattern on the computer, printed it out in the size required, and then a few carpenters cut out the pattern.” He laughs. “Keep looking at it. You won’t find any tile pattern which is identical to another one.”

Torkil got involved in woodworking after cyclone Thane hit Auroville in December 2011. As he said in an interview, “The cyclone brought a big change in my life. I’ve always loved wood and worked a lot with it, but I never imagined that it would become my focus in Auroville. However, after the cyclone, the Land and Resource Management team were suffocated by the work. They only had the energy to collect the wood, there didn’t seem to be anybody taking responsibility for storing it and processing it.” A new unit called ‘Woodlink’ and Torkil’s new unit ‘Prakrit’ took the best logs and sent them for cutting in an outside sawmill. All this wood was stored at CSR. Most wood was then left to air-dry, some of it was dried in a kiln. The wood from Woodlink was made available to Aurovilians to buy.

“At that time I had no idea to make furniture; but being in the saw mill and cutting the logs and seeing the natural forms somehow changed me,” says Torkil. “Back in Denmark I used to work with wood which was brought in by containers, sawn in straight beams and planks to make optimal use of the container space. But with straight planks, you get no inspiration from the tree itself. So my designs there were purely Scandinavian, with the focus on simple forms and functionality. But now I suddenly had the possibility to follow the form of the log, creating a very organic design which is decidedly not Scandinavian.”

In order not to overdo the organic design, Torkil designed legs that bend outwards to support his tables. “They are also needed for stability,” he says. “Tables with straight legs are less sturdy. Moreover, our furniture is often used in air-conditioned rooms. That means a very dry climate, where the wood shrinks. For that reason we do not use traditional joinery but leave a space between the slabs that form the table top, to allow for expansion and shrinkage. The out-bending legs can follow such a movement more easily.”

The ‘feel’ of his tables is somewhat Japanese. Torkil laughs. “There are many similarities between Scandinavian and Japanese design. I recently read a book about the development of Danish furniture and there was a mention of Japanese inspiration. Both focus on simple forms. In fact, the largest market for Scandinavian designed furniture is Japan.”

Prakrit’s tables have followed IKEA’s ideas of furniture that can be disassembled for easy transport and re-assembled on site. But contrary to the Swedish furniture giant, Prakrit has no interest in going for mass production. “It would mean a completely different factory set-up, buying modern machinery, producing hundreds of pieces a day and having a nightmare in marketing it. India is not yet ready for that, I think. And then we would have to compete with Chinese imports, in the hundreds of thousands. Prakrit will continue to concentrate on the high end user and provide designer furniture on demand.”

Torkil also loves to see what can be done with wood that others reject, such as trunks. A ‘Burned Tree of Life’ and a trunk with the sing of ‘Om’ carved on three sides show that they can be put to decorative use.