Pierre Cronje is back in Jozi

WORDS Nechama Brodie

Lees in Afrikaans.

Nearly a decade after closing his Hyde Park premises, wood alchemist Pierre Cronje has returned to Gauteng – with a massive new showroom in the design hub of Kramerville in Sandton. 

Pierre Cronje says Kramerville was the “natural choice” for his showroom and he looked at several locations in the design district before eventually settling on a 700sqm space on Desmond Street. 

“It used to be a bank,” Pierre explains. “It is an older building, and the [premises] were quite decrepit – there were low ceilings, with tiles and softboard to absorb sound. Every 10th board there was one of those fluorescent lights. It felt like an 1980s office.”

Working with a limited budget, Pierre transformed the space with a few simple interventions. First, removing the ceiling boards to expose the area above and add height to the showroom. His own workshop designed new lighting installations – a mix of fluorescent, LED and downlighters contained in “catwalks” made of unsealed French oak planks.

Next, a back room was used to recreate a “factory” atmosphere, showing off an impressive display of carpentry tools together with sections of indigenous and imported untreated woods. A plaque next to a piece of Outeniqua Yellowwood gives the age and provenance of the tree, and explains how only dead or dying trees are harvested to keep the forests sustainable.

In the centre of the room is part of a trunk of French oak (imported, but also sourced from naturally sustainable forests) sliced into planks separated by pegs so you can see the gradual division of the whole, the inception point of Pierre’s popular contemporary oak designs. 

“I wanted to let people know we really do make furniture,” Pierre says, “ not import mass-produced items from Indonesia or China.”

The showroom was finished with epoxy coating on the floors and newly painted walls. As a reminder of the showroom’s origins, Pierre kept the bank’s safe room – complete with barred viewing panel and massive high-security door – and turned it into a wine cellar installation worthy of Edgar Allen Poe.

“I love the space,” says Pierre, “and it was done on a shoestring.”

The Pierre Cronje showroom is at 16 Desmond Street, Kramerville, www.pierrecronje.co.za