THE ATELIER · EST. 2009 · BRESCIA, ITALY
Every object begins
as raw material.
Five artisans. Hand-form bronze, stone, and clay through the same processes used in northern Italian foundries for centuries. No shortcuts. No automation.
OUR METHOD
From geological deposit to finished form — a 14-week journey.
Each Atelier Zero piece passes through twelve pairs of hands before it is packed for transit. Sourcing, mould-making, casting, chasing, patination, and final inspection — every stage is performed by a specialist who has practiced that single discipline for a minimum of eight years.
Material Sourcing
Bronze ingots sourced from a family foundry in Lumezzane — 86% copper, 11% tin, 3% trace metals. Limestone from a single quarry in Val Trompia, selected for grain consistency. Oak planks air-dried for minimum 36 months.
Mould Making
Rubber moulds pulled from hand-carved models. For complex geometry, we use ceramic shell investment — a liquid slurry of refractory flour and binder that hardens over twelve coats, building a skin precise enough to capture tool marks at 0.1mm resolution.
Lost-Wax Casting
Bronze melted at 1200°C and poured by hand into ceramic shell moulds. The wax burns out in the preheated shell, leaving a precise negative cavity. A single pour takes 90 seconds. We pour at dawn, when ambient temperature is stable to within 0.5°C.
Chasing & Patination
After casting, a chaser removes sprues and refines surface texture by hand — reworking tooling marks to achieve the exact finish specified. Patination is applied cold: ferric nitrate, cupric nitrate, and ammonium chloride in water, layered and heated with a torch to develop depth and tonal variation.
2009
5
14 WKS