Marco Ripa is a craftsman and designer. Born in 1977, at the age of 15 Marco entered the workshop to learn the craft of an artisan and to discover is passion for the matter and for the production of unique and handcrafted pieces. He chose iron as his signature metal because it’s dirty, noisy and rejects repetition. His metal takes shape, color and balance inspired by the American sculpture Calder. Building on Ruskin’s philosophy in the Arts and Crafts Movement Marco believes that a man is as unique and unrepeatable as the objects he makes. At the age of 33 Marco founded his own laboratory for the manufacture of iron and steel.

A short description of your collection.
The entire collection is made out of painted steel. The essence of my project is to give lightness and dynamism to this material usually considered heavy and static. I love changing traditional rules and pushing projects beyond the limits. An example is the “who’s next” books holder that lies with all its weight on one single edge. The impression is that it’s “walking on a fine line”.

What inspires you?
I love art and design since ever. I daily enrich my images and informations bag. How it happens, it is unknown. I keep on the bedside table a pencil and a block notes. During insonne night, mind travels, projects that seem brilliant take life and the block notes fulfill of drawings and notes. 

The day after reading it I find just a bullshots. But sometimes something good become a true projects. So the long prototyping work starts.

Your style in three words.
Essential, contemporary, fresh.

Detail makes a difference... What’s yours?
Being a craftman and developing by hand every objects, the finishes for sure. The precision of the welding and the grinding process.

Which object do you wish to design?
Sculptures for public places, squares or parks. I would like to help our country being more beautiful, starting from suburbs and small areas often abandoned.

If your brand was a song?
The first object I produced in my lab has been the stereo phone. I hear music all day long. I used to like different musical genres, from rock to jazz, from classical to electronic, from reggae to funky. But if I had to choose one, I would go for the rock style, and maybe with the song “My generation”, The Who.