Ugo La Pietra
La Fucina di Efesto

Ugo La Pietra is a multifaceted and complex figure—an artist, architect and designer, radical intellectual and tireless experimenter in the broad field of urban planning, applied arts and visual research, as well as a cultural curator. Since the late 1950s, his personal research has sought to define the relationship between the individual and the environment, using different languages and working across multiple disciplines including cinema, painting, drawing and architecture. He won the Compasso d’Oro Award in 1979 and the Compasso d’Oro Career Award in 2016. In 2014, the Milan Triennale held a major retrospective exhibition of his works. In particular, he was the first and often only advocate of the applied arts in Italy, having personally worked with some great master artisans, enhancing their skills and bringing the extraordinary and unique features of Italy’s craft districts—with special reference to ceramic production—to the attention of the public and institutions, through a huge number of exhibitions, events, initiatives and publications.

La Fucina di Efesto, established in Milan in 1997, creates extraordinary metal works at the crossroads between ancient craftsmanship, technical experimentation and contemporary research-driven design—beauty born of fire and manual skilfulness. The master of the forge is Alessandro Rametta, a great talent in metal art, known to designers, artists and architects looking for a unique place for artistic experimentation in iron and metalworking. His works are not only characterised by technical mastery, but also full of poetry. His atelier takes full advantage of the possibilities offered by both craft processes and experimentation with new techniques, including freehand, leading to the creation of often large-sized works made of iron, steel, copper and brass, halfway between sculpture, design and a unique piece of high craftsmanship. Alessandro Rametta’s skilful hand works his beloved metal with the fire of his forge and passion, exploring all its formal, chromatic and sculptural potential in creations of great expressive power—from trees to armillary spheres, from masks to planets, from figures to heads.