François Junod
Automation
Sainte-Croix

« I think my androids have a soul. When you create something, you necessarily give something of yourself. »

Born in Sainte-Croix in 1959, François Junod attended the Technical School there then, while doing an apprenticeship as an automaton restorer with Michel Bertrand in Bullet, he obtained his diploma at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne. Since 1984, François Junod has been making automatons and modern sculptures with a fascinating power of attraction. World famous, he has received numerous awards and distinctions.

« I make objects that can travel in time. I like things that last, solid, repairable. This is my side of Sainte-Croix. »

With François Junod, mechanics becomes poetry. Pushkin writes a poem, a white horse gallops on the ceiling, a bird sings in its golden cage, a lunar android flies over the studio: all of François Junod’s art is based on an ancestral know-how resolutely inscribed in the contemporary world and ’it takes complexity, perfection and imagination to the highest level.

Diplomas

1983 Diploma in drawing and sculpture, Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

1978 CFC in micromechanics, Technical School of Sainte-Croix

Honors

2018 Master Art Craftsman

2013 Vaudois Cultural Prize Applied Arts, Vaudois Foundation for Culture

2011 Gaïa Artisanat-creation Prize, International Watchmaking Museum, La Chaux-de-Fonds

2007 Silver diploma at the 15th national competition, Russian Federation of Architects

2007 Selected among the 100 personalities who make up French-speaking Switzerland, Forum des 100

2005 Special Jury Prize, World Karakuri Contest, Japan

2005 Originality Prize, International Automata Festival, Sainte-Croix

1994 First prize ADENOVA, Association for the development of Nord Vaudois

1992 Originality Prize, International Automata Festival, Sainte-Croix

1990 Pince d’Or, International Festival of Automata, Sainte-Croix

Connections

TF1:

https://www-tf1-fr.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.tf1.fr/amp/tf1/jt-13h/videos/ce-fabricant-dautomates-nous-ouvre-les-portes- from-his-workshop-39835257.html

Youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYYLvyMrnWI&feature=youtu.be

FVPC:
https://www.fvpc.ch/laureats/rechercher/2013/francois-junod

RTS:
http://www.rts.ch/play/tv/couleurs-locales/video/sainte-croix-vd-decouverte-du-monde-des-automates-de-francois-junod?id=1763199

FVPC:
http://www.fvpc.ch/cms/images/pdfs/article%20chronometrophilia%20francois%20junod%201.pdf