La Biota (Michele Sottocasa)

La Biota is the Italian pipe workshop Michele Sottocasa runs alone in Turin. Sottocasa (b. 1983) is said to have moved into pipe making in 2013. The pieces the workshop turns out are shaped by hand, and most are finished with a horn band or ferrule on the shank.

From Graphic Design to the Pipe Bench

Sottocasa arrived at the bench by a roundabout path. He trained in photography and graphic design, and worked for years as a graphic designer and art director. His acquaintance with pipes reaches back much further, to his grandfather, who smoked a pipe. Once he himself took up pipe smoking, he made his first attempts on pieces for his own use; he only began making for others once he felt he had reached a standard that met his own criteria. He is recorded as a member of Accademia della Pipa, which brings together Italy's pipe makers.

Shaping by Hand

The workshop's main material is Italian briar; records also mention pieces made from morta and olive wood. The workshop emphasizes that every pipe is made entirely by hand. Sources agree that no traditional metal lathe is used; whether a bench such as a wood lathe is used during shaping varies from source to source. The result is the same regardless of that detail: there is no repeating list of molds, and every piece counts as one of a kind. The workshop's presentation also notes that various wood species are used for the inlays on the body and shank.

Horn Details and Design Language

The brand's most recognizable mark is its shank ornamentation. Horn bands and ferrules are common; the maker, tying the choice to his mountain origins, also uses unusual materials such as roe deer antler. Mouthpieces are hand-cut from acrylic and ebonite; the difference between these two materials is discussed in the mouthpiece materials entry. Classical molds and Danish school influence run side by side in the design language; sandblasted, rusticated, and smooth pieces all appear together. Sottocasa traces his design inspiration to his hikes in the mountains of northern Italy; rather than repeating classical shapes as they are, he says his criterion is that every pipe should be able to stand on its own.

The Meaning of the Name

In Italian pipe making it is not unusual for a brand name to be chosen from a separate word rather than the maker's surname; Ser Jacopo is a well-known example of this. The word Sottocasa chose, however, carries not one meaning but two. In the Lombard dialect "la biota" roughly means "bare"; the maker reads this as meaning that a good pipe has nothing to hide, that it speaks for itself without mediation. The word's meaning in ecology — the totality of plants and animals sharing a given habitat — points instead to the bond a pipe forges between people and nature. Both meanings align with the workshop's emphasis on nature.