Agate

«I wanted to design boxes to open, taking care to lift the lid slowly with two hands, as if the box could feel that I am kind to it and that I don't want to mistreat it in the slightest. Boxes made with precious woods where you can put even slightly secret things: a special brush, some special paper notebooks or more simply something that I would like to remain secret. Maybe notes from lovers."
Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass designed Scatole Segrete for Numa, in plywood: five small architectures that express a very personal vision of the value of things: that symbolic value that certain objects full of meaning can take on when we use them for a very specific reason.

Rosalia , Agnese , Teresa , Zita and Agata are the names of the five wooden boxes offered in 99 numbered copies. Five small architectures that express a very personal vision of the value of things: that symbolic value that certain objects full of meaning can take on when we use them for a very specific reason. Five extraordinary interpretations by Ettore Sottsass of a traditional material such as wood, in the highly iconographic language that distinguishes this great designer.

Material:

• Local maple Europe
• Proven ebony Indonesia
• Birch native Russia. Birch plywood composed of 7 layers of 20/10 mm with crossed fiber to make the wood stable.

Processing steps:

1. The processing begins with a careful choice of woods to discard the defective parts and to have a homogeneous effect of color and design of the wood fibers
2. The birch plywood panel (composed of 7 layers of 20/10 mm, with crossed fibers to make the wood stable) is veneered on both sides, on one side with maple and on the other with alternating bands of ebony and Maple tree. The ebony is applied in a series of 3 layers of 6/10mm. each and the maple in a 20/10 mm layer. This thickness allows the smoothing of the surfaces and the rounding of the edges.
3. We proceed to cut the parts that make up the box.
4. We move on to gluing and fitting the various parts together. The horizontal joints are worked and joined with a stop; the vertical joints are made with hidden internal wooden cores.
5. After adequate time, the surfaces are treated: they are worked with sepia paper and the edges are rounded.
6. A first coat of "base" is passed with a brush to close the pores of the wood.
7. It is sanded again with increasingly finer cuttlefish papers.
8. We proceed with stamping.
9. Another coat of paint is given with a brush to make the surface "silky".
10. After adequate drying, a natural layer of beeswax is applied by hand to the internal and external surfaces.

NB: The processing of ebony parts requires great care, since, when raw, they release a black powder which penetrates the fiber of the other woods, soiling them irremediably. All the parts of this box, before being assembled, are left to rest for several months, in order to make the wood more stable.