Astarte

“Pewter is an ancient metal alloy: tin, copper, lead… what is produced with this alloy turns out motionless, solid, heavy. Contemporary pewter no longer contains the lead that gave objects a dark, medieval, Germanic surface: this alloy contains antimony instead: brilliant objects, similar to silver, are thus made, which nevertheless do not lose their motionlessness and presence.”
Ettore Sottsass

METALLIA is contemporary pewter. Rediscovering an ‘ancient’ material such as pewter, giving it new forms, characterising it with new surfaces, filling it with new meanings: this is the Metallia project, whose aim is to propose pewter objects anew through the interpretation of different designers and their modern language, with the fundamental contribution of the know-how of Alfredo Marinoni.  Metallia represents the meeting between the craftsman, who knows the material and how to work it, and the poetics of design, which gives the material new expressiveness.

Pewter is an ancient material, which was already worked in Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, by pouring a tin alloy into engraved iron or brass moulds and then working it with the techniques of corrosion and hammering to obtain forms of the craft tradition. Contemporary pewter, protagonist of the Metallia collection, is a noble alloy in every respect, with extraordinary ductility and great plastic quality.  Contemporary Pewter is made of a composite combination of metals, with the absolute exclusion of lead; it therefore keeps unaltered the distinctive characteristics that set it apart and its great plastic quality; it is entirely hygienic and can be used to make objects for serving at the table and in the kitchen, as well as, naturally, all furnishing objects.

The insight at the foundation of METALLIA gives new strength to this ancient material, and the forms, the objects, the proposals realised are the truly remarkable result of the great artistic abilities of the designers that pervade the work of Numa.  This is also borne out by the fact that Tamar Ben David, Liliana Bonomi, Giovanni Levanti, Marco Susani and Mario Trimarchi, designers of marked artistic sensitivity, particularly attentive to the use of materials in the craft and industrial fields, have enthusiastically joined in the realisation of the METALLIA project. The participation of Ettore Sottsass, anarchic poet of the architecture of this century and one of the fathers of design, was a fundamental comfort to the project.

The result of this work is expressed in a programme of 28 objects, to decorate the table and the home, objects of great evocative power, which find a natural place in any setting.  The Metallia project is also the precise expression of the philosophy of the Numa brand, aimed at deepening the research and production of objects using materials traditionally used by craftsmen, but reinterpreted in the light of design.

Metallia therefore represents, in the path undertaken by NUMA, the first occasion of encounter between the knowledge of the craftsman, who knows the material and the techniques to work it, and the poetics of design, which gives matter a new expressiveness, the sentiment of a new ethical and symbolic dimension of making.