The 1970s Olivetti building that seemed to suspend architecture in mid-air

Florence has often found itself at the intersection of diverse and deeply rooted histories. This was also true during the mature years of modern architecture after the Second World War. As the 1970s approached, Olivetti crossed paths with Florentine urban history, which spans the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the 19th century, and with Italian construction culture. At that time, the latter was in the midst of a period of engineering research and experimentation unfolding across Europe, with Italy being one of its most distinct epicentres.

At the time, Olivetti was in the midst of an international expansion, establishing branches and showrooms around the world, many of which were designed by renowned figures such as Carlo Scarpa, BBPR, Massimo Vignelli and Costantino Nivola. The Florence branch, completed in 1972 and designed by Alberto Galardi and engineer Silvano Zorzi, encapsulates this perfectly: the structure is a showcase of construction solutions and concepts that have been brought to life.

A fully glazed wall on the ground floor can retract completely into the floor, dissolving any separation between inside and outside. On the garden side, vertically pivoting glass panels open the building up to the greenery. This nearly immaterial threshold is true to the building’s dual purpose as both a showroom and a corporate branch, representing the Olivetti identity in the heart of Florence.

The structural challenge was clear: to create a basement for a mechanised car park and free up workspace by removing intermediate vertical elements. Galardi and Zorzi inverted conventional logic by designing a box-like roof structure that rests on two lateral towers housing the stairs and elevators. From this roof, pre-cast, prestressed, reinforced concrete hangers run along the exterior of the façades and suspend the intermediate levels’ floor slabs. This is like bridge-building, except that loads ascend rather than descend, and the structure is not hidden away, but becomes the elevation itself.

The tie rods are slender; doubled in the depth direction, they do not thicken the facade’s sections, and they punctuate the elevation with typographic precision. Their presence defines what one discovers once inside: emptiness—that open floor plan that the Modern Movement had pursued for years, and which research on work organization in the 1960s translated into the principle of the “landscape office,” with its large, continuous, and flexible surfaces, free of structural interruptions.

This spatial identity is enhanced by the careful selection of materials: the building’s character is defined by exposed concrete made with white cement and Zandobbio marble aggregates, which is bush-hammered on the large bands and sandblasted elsewhere. Initially, the idea was to use Carrara white marble. This refined, non-mimetic dialogue with the city is a poetic expression of technique that evokes the role of bronze in Mies van der Rohe’s later works, such as the Seagram Building in New York. It emphasises the technological element and affirms the building’s status as a distinctive entity within the urban ecosystem.

This dialogue with the site and its era is also evident in the interiors. Ettore Sottsass worked here, experimenting with another enduring symbol of the Olivetti brand, the Synthesis 45. Developed with Bruno Scagliola, these furnishings share the same birth year as the Florentine building: 1972. It was also the year of the landmark “Italy: a new domestic landscape” exhibition at MoMA that celebrated the exceptional nature of Italian design.

A monograph edited by Giuseppe Galbiati, Franz Graf and Giulia Marino is bringing renewed visibility to this project and the collective histories running through it. The narrative unfolds alongside archival documents through exceptional photography by Gabriele Basilico, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Pino Abbrescia and Roberto Conte.