Adriano Olivetti Tomorrow

In the photos and video of Francesco Mattuzzi, on display at the Venice Biennale's Italian Pavilion, time stands still and human presence is is rarefied: tiny life-forms come to life in a "rediscovered Atlantis".

Five sequences evolve through places, in reminiscence of a space trip. It's a journey across volumes and shapes, both inspired and absorbed by nature. Time stands still, frozen in a science fiction atmosphere. Humanity is rarefied: tiny life-forms come to life in "rediscovered Atlantis" scenarios. The soundtrack and sound design have been created ad hoc for this project by Chiara Luzzana. Through the use of modular synthesizers and analogue processors, she turned the original sounds of Olivetti machineries and environments into an audio path. The soundtrack weaves an acoustic journey and creates a feeling of "being there". Every single sound embedded in this audio path is, in fact, a real sound that has been "caught" through precision microphones and then turned into music. Francesco Mattuzzi

The images displayed here are part of a larger work by Francesco Mattuzzi, commissioned by the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti. Undertaken in the last two years, the project integrates the Fondazione's effort to recognize and appreciate the architectural heritage of the city of Ivrea. Last 9 May, Ivrea's architecture has officially entered the Italian list of proposed candidates for UNESCO Heritage Sites, thanks to the joint effort of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali [the Italian Ministry of Culture], the Ivrea Municipality and the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti. The industrial city of Ivrea is an exceptional example of an industrial city of the second half of the 20th century, representing the materialization of an industrial city according to a model desired by Olivetti. Here, a social and productive system flourished, inspired by the community, in an alternative to the typical model proposed by the 20th century industrial development. These photographs will on display until 25 November in the opening section of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Top: Olivetti I.C.O., patio ceiling, new I.C.O., circa 1958. Architect: Eduardo Vittoria. Above: East Residential Unit, 1967/1975. Architects: Iginio Cappai, Pietro Mainardis. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Adriano Olivetti Tomorrow
Adriano Olivetti died fifty-two years ago, and his name and story have never been remembered so often as they are today, as a model to help us face up to the crisis that our country is going through and, more in general, as a new way of seeing the relationship between the productive world, civil society and culture.

The depth of Olivetti's thinking and the activities through which he expressed himself are so complex and apparently disjointed that to single out a specific, circumscribed reason, for which it might be useful, I would even say necessary, to go back over this experience today, becomes a very hard task.

Adriano Olivetti was a great entrepreneur: he developed the factory that he inherited from his father Camillo by turning it into a cutting-edge international business. He had the insight to develop electronics in the early 1950s, and pursued the road of technological innovation with determination and success. He was the first to acquire a large typewriter factory in the United States, and we could, of course, go on to remember many other ventures that have since become the stuff that the history of Italian industry is made of.

Kindergarten in Borgo Olivetti, 1939/1941. Architects: Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Yet Adriano Olivetti is also remembered as an urban planner, a multifaceted intellectual, a politician. A thinker, a complete intellectual whose Movimento Comunità consolidated the idea of a close-knit community founded on the awareness of the inalienability of the spiritual values of man's existence, capable of turning the challenges involved in the rise of industrial civilization and the endless opportunities of technological progress in man's favor.

The deep understanding of this identity poised between spiritual and material forces, which Olivetti represented within a political model capable of constructively guaranteeing them, is the keystone to understanding and accepting each Olivettian experience in its complex entirety, the truly unique scientific precision in terms of organization with which this effort to synthesize was pursued, and, lastly, the awareness of the ends that showed it the way, examples of which can be found in the following passages: "When I speak of spiritual forces, for the sake of clarity, I try to sum up with a simple formula the four essential forces of the spirit: Truth, Justice, Beauty and above all Love. A society that does not believe in spiritual values cannot believe in its own future and will never be able to venture forth toward a common destiny."

Olivetti worker's houses, 1940/1942. Architects: Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

And: "The Ivrea factory, albeit part of an economic context and therefore accepting of its rules, has turned its ends and its major concerns toward the material, cultural and social elevation of the place it was called to operate in, thus heading the region in the direction of a new type of community where there is no substantial difference in goals among the leading figures of its human events, actors in the story that is built up day after day to guarantee the children of this earth a worthy life. [...] The architect who designed this factory had a respect for beauty in mind [...], and it was therefore conceived to fit the people who work here, so that their well-organized workplace could act as a tool for personal improvement and not as a device that causes suffering."

While the first text helps us to determine the eschatological limits of Olivetti's proposal, the second one, delivered for the opening of the Olivetti plant in Pozzuoli in 1955, convincingly introduces one of the essential cornerstones on which all of his ideology is based: the territory, the seamless interweaving between it and the world of material production, which at that time was the factory, the urban configuration that must regulate this complex relationship and, lastly, its architectural appearance.

West Residential Centre, 1968/1971. Architects: Roberto Gabetti, Aimaro Isola. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Architecture, like any other operative element of Olivettian reform, was not meant to perform an aesthetic function alone. Rather, the belief was that archicture served as the form inside which to express an idea of society and civilization; architecture was thus an organic part of all of Adriano Olivetti's entrepreneurial efforts both in Ivrea and beyond. Out of respect for this need for organicity and cohesion, the Biennale has chosen to dedicate one of the sections in the Italian Pavilion to Adriano Olivetti, showcasing not just the patron of avant-garde industrial buildings and modern architectural complexes for social services, but also the urban planner, the publisher, the politician. So in the design of the exhibition of that interpretative orientation, the disciplines touched upon by Olivetti, his experiences, the company's community workshop, so to speak, have been divided up only to make them easier to illustrate and disseminate. A decision that the Foundation I preside over wholeheartedly embraced by way of the scientific support and organizational contribution that was requested of us.

Olivetti Study and Experience Centre, 1951/1955. Architect: Eduardo Vittoria. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

The Venice Architecture Biennale presents and represents what is new and, in addition to being driven by it, it fills the institution that bears Adriano Olivetti's name, and myself, with pride, to know that a man who would have been 111 is still considered to be one of the most influential and relevant names in social innovation. This year, 2012, our Foundation celebrates its fiftieth anniversary; the proposal put forward by INARCH and this exhibition are the best possible acknowledgement of the work we have done over the years, work that has been carried out along with experiments performed in traditional spaces, and in the company of so many friends and collaborators, the aim being to keep the memory of this story alive. Just a few weeks ago the architectural works Olivetti had built in Ivrea were officially chosen as candidates for UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. We launched this project in 2008, together with the Town of Ivrea, on the occasion of Olivetti's 100th anniversary, as we firmly believed that the legacy that truly deserved to be safeguarded was Olivetti's social project, represented today by the architecture. MiBC's adherence and support of a candidacy based on this premise and INARCH's approval of this section of the Pavilion make us hope that Adriano Olivetti's story will be recognized as a heritage of intelligence and humanity for this country as well.

I wish to thank all those who have wanted to pay tribute to Adriano Olivetti, who I am sure would have been immensely pleased because, leaving the celebrations aside, he would have seen it as a seed being sown for a new world of hope. Laura A. Olivetti, President of Fondazione A. Olivetti

Olivetti Construction complex, spanning Via Jervis in Ivrea (From the first Mattoni Rossi factory to the first and second extension of the Olivetti I.C.O.). Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Olivetti Construction complex, spanning Via Jervis in Ivrea (second extension of the Olivetti I.C.O). Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Olivetti Company Cafeteria, 1953/1959. Architect: Ignazio Gardella. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Office palazzo 1, 1960/1964 (interior). Architects: Gian Antonio Bernasconi, Annibale Fiocchi, Marcello Nizzoli. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Olivetti I.C.O., patio ceiling, new I.C.O., circa 1958. Architect: Eduardo Vittoria. Courtesy of Francesco Mattuzzi and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Adriano Olivetti Tomorrow

In the photos and video of Francesco Mattuzzi, on display at the Venice Biennale's Italian Pavilion, time stands still and human presence is is rarefied: tiny life-forms come to life in a "rediscovered Atlantis".

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