SECRET BOXES - AGATE

Plywood box 18x18x18.5cm (H), limited edition of 99 pieces. Birch plywood structure covered externally in ebony and maple. Wax finish.

«I wanted to design boxes that you open by carefully lifting the lid slowly with both hands, as if the box could feel that I am gentle with it and that I do not want to mistreat it in the slightest. Boxes made with precious woods to put even somewhat secret things: a special brush, some notebooks of special paper, or more simply something I would like to keep secret. Perhaps love notes».
Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass designed for Numa Secret Boxes, made of plywood: five small architectural pieces that express a very personal vision of the value of things: that symbolic value that certain meaningful objects can acquire when we use them for a very precise reason.

Rosalia, Agnese, Teresa, Zita, and Agata are the names of the five wooden boxes offered in 99 numbered editions. Five small architectural pieces that express a very personal vision of the value of things: that symbolic value that certain meaningful objects can acquire when we use them for a very precise reason. Five extraordinary interpretations by Ettore Sottsass of a traditional material like wood, in the strongly iconographic language that distinguishes this great designer.

Materials:

• Maple from Europe
• Ebony from Indonesia
• Birch from Russia. Birch plywood composed of 7 layers of 20/10 mm with crossed grain to make the wood stable.

Processing steps:

1. The process begins with a careful selection of woods to discard defective parts and to achieve a homogeneous effect of color and wood grain pattern.
2. The birch plywood panel (composed of 7 layers of 20/10 mm, with crossed grain to make the wood stable) is veneered on both faces, on one side with maple and on the other with alternating strips of ebony and maple. The ebony is applied in a series of 3 layers of 6/10mm each, and the maple in one layer of 20/10 mm. This thickness allows for the sanding of surfaces and the rounding of edges.
3. The parts that make up the box are cut.
4. The various parts are glued and fitted together. Horizontal joints are processed and joined with a rabbet; vertical joints are made with hidden internal wooden cores.
5. After adequate time, the surface treatment begins: they are worked with sandpaper and the edges are rounded.
6. A first coat of "primer" is brushed on to close the pores of the wood.
7. It is then sanded again with increasingly fine sandpaper.
8. Stamping is performed.
9. Another coat of paint is brushed on 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, as when raw, they release a black powder that penetrates the fibers of other woods, irrevocably staining them. All parts of this box, before being assembled, are left to rest for several months to make the wood more stable.