Our Story
SINCE 1927
1927
The Arckx Company takes its name from the Flemish origins of its founder Camille Arckx who associated with Raoul Pestourie. Together they established the workshop in 1927 opposite to Notre Dame, rue des Grand Degrés in Paris.
Kit out with small axes, nails, hammers and with a cart and a horse, they started to dispense their way of packaging the bound books and the crystals chandeliers.
The customers were “Ateliers Rostaing” (works of art Restorer Company), the “Edition Larousse” and the ovens of the Ressort bakery (situated in “l’ile de la cite).
Right after World War II, the Parisian workshop became too small and the truck’s loadings in this street were really epic. Raoul Pestourie therefore decided to move the firm to the suburb of Paris, in Asnieres-sur-Seine on the Robert Dupont Street which is a quiet street, without any neighbor but surrounded with markets gardening.
1969
In 1969, Raoul Pestourie passed the torch on to his son André and his daughter in law Madeleine (who is by the way Camille Arckx’s niece, the Company’s founder) and retired him.
The period was firmly industrial and our society can’t avoid it. We participated in big architectural drafts (the Assouan’s dam, the Mexico’s underground or the Ryad’s airport). We also took part in big inventions (Concorde,TGV). Added to this we still have some artists and works of art sellers as customers (for instance Niki de Saint Phalle, Achiam, Agam or Salvator Dali).
1992
In 1992, a high school, and a middle school, as well as some huge buildings settled in the Robert Dupont Street. It was impossible to keep an industrial activity in the middle of an urban area.
André Pestourie decided to move the workshop once again this time to Cormeilles en Parisis, and then retired him from the job and left the business to his two sons Emmanuel and Stéphane. But, unfortunately the neighborhood, following the same pattern each time, became urban in its turn.
1999
The brothers decided to move one last time the workshop to Argenteuil (where we actually set up) but this time in an industrial estate…