Cosma e Damiano

«Pewter is an ancient metal alloy: tin, copper, lead… whatever is made from 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: objects are thus made that are brilliant, similar to silver, yet 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 offer 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 worked in Europe as early as 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 etching and hammering to obtain forms of the artisan tradition. Contemporary pewter, protagonist of the Metallia collection, is a noble alloy in every respect, with extraordinary characteristics of ductility and great plastic quality.  Contemporary Pewter is made up of a composite mixture of metals, with the absolute exclusion of lead; it therefore retains unaltered the peculiar characteristics that distinguish it and its great plastic quality; it is absolutely hygienic and can be used to produce objects for serving at the table and in the kitchen, as well as, of course, for all furnishing objects.

The insight underlying METALLIA gives new strength to this ancient material, and the forms, the objects and the proposals created 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 sensibility, particularly attentive to the use of materials in both the artisan and industrial fields, 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 of 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 into 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 for working it, and the poetics of design, which gives matter a new expressiveness, the feeling of a new ethical and symbolic dimension of making.