ADRIANO OLIVETTI ...... A builder of the future
Texts by Fabrizio Fazioli, Valerio Castronovo, Mauro Leo Baranzini, Davide Cadeddu, Laura Olivetti. Introduction by Carlo De Benedetti.
A builder of the future ...... Adriano Olivetti
by Carlo De Benedetti*
I never had the pleasure of meeting Adriano Olivetti, but when I became the major shareholder, Vice-President and Managing Director of Olivetti I could “feel” his influence in my office, in the factories and among the man- agers who had worked at Olivetti in his day and had thus known him.
Adriano was, in fact, more a presence than a mere memory. There is no denying the fact that he ran the company at a time when economic condi- tions in the West and Japan were easier than today. The post-war econom- ic boom facilitated production and marketing of typewriters and electro- mechanical calculators. The outstanding inventiveness and know-how that became the trademark of the Ivrea-based company back then meant that Olivetti had virtually cornered the market, thanks in part to a lack of direct competition. Olivetti also enjoyed incredible profit margins for the elec- tronics sector at the time: the “Divisumma” calculator, for example, had a gross profit margin of close to 50%.
Adriano’s greatest skill as a business magnate was to use these huge profits for international expansion, turning Olivetti into Italy’s only true multina- tional concern then, with production sites in Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Arge ntina. Plus, Olivetti had highly efficient sales networks covering prac- tically every area of the economic world: from Japan to the USA, from Singapore to Malaysia. This was made possible through the great care that Adriano Olivetti personally took in selecting and appointing his staff. So, not only did Adriano Olivetti create Italy’s first multinational, but he also helped spread the concept of the m anagerial culture to other major Italian enterprises, such as Fiat, IFI, Alitalia and many more besides.
He also had a deep-rooted belief in utopian socialism, which led him to encourage Italian architects to build pleasant, light “living spaces” for Olivetti workers. He was an enlightened “boss”, but also an exceptional man in terms of his “solitude” and his taste for all things great and beautiful.
To day we still remember him as such and rightly so.
*Cavaliere del Lavoro Ingegner Carlo De Benedetti, Honorary President of CIR SpA (Compagnie Industriali Riunite) and President of Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso SpA.
Page I: Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960).
Left: Adriano Olivetti talking with young workers at the Ivrea factory, late 1950s. (Publifoto)
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A builder of the future ...... Adriano Olivetti and the “short century”
by Fabrizio Fazioli*
Left: Adriano Olivetti in front of the ICO building complex.
On this page: The first extension to the original factory building from 1895, the main production hall known as “Vecchia ICO” (“Old ICO”).
Adriano Olivetti ...... At the time Adriano Olivetti was born, 1901, few workers. Adriano was just seven years Europe was a dynamic, euphoric place: it old. From the biography of Adriano was the belle époque, society and lifestyles Olivetti written by the historian and jour- were changing and there was an optimistic nalist Valerio Ochetto (formerly responsi- belief in progress. By the time he died, in ble for checking historical facts for Italian 1960, Europe was on the brink of the great- state television – RAI) we learn that the est economic boom ever recorded in history, young Adriano was more inclined to follow despite still being split in half by the Iron a political career, owing to the social and Curtain. During Adriano’s lifetime Europe political tensions in Italy and the climate of survived two devastating world wars, a hope and redemption after the horrors of great economic depression and several the First World War. Indeed, he was some- political upheavals: the Russian Revolution, what detached during his university years, Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy. rarely attending the lectures on industrial We cannot, therefore, say that Adriano chemistry at Turin’s Politecnico. Nor was Olivetti lived in a particularly fortunate era. it certain that one day he would take over The great historian Eric J. Hobsbawm from his father in running the company. On defined this violent, disturbing period in the the contrary, after a brief period working history of humanity – from the outbreak of on the shop floor in 1914, Adriano said that the First World War to the fall of the Berlin he would never play an active role in the Wall – as the “short century”. A century of future of the factory. In the 1920s he fre- extraordinary scientific progress and total quented the political and intellectual cir- war, of economic crises and unprecedented cles of Turin. Together with his father, he prosperity, of social and cultural revolu- actively contributed to the L’Azione tions. A short century in terms of the dizzy- Riformista (Reformist Action) weekly ing speed at which events in history took paper that Camillo had founded in 1919, as place and lifestyles changed. Whether he well as another Turin weekly, Tempi Nuovi liked it or not, Adriano Olivetti witnessed (New Times), also founded by his father in these changes and events and was a promi- 1922. nent figure in this troubled century, as short The years immediately after the First as his own life proved to be. His was a sin- World War were not just full of dreams and gular intellectual and entrepreneurial study for Adriano: he wrote and planned career covering many different areas of for a future in political journalism, not interest. industry. In addition to being harshly criti- cal of society, like most young men, he also Intellectual, politician or businessman? made a few proposals that were spot-on In 1908, when Camillo Olivetti – Adriano’s and definitely avant-garde. For instance, father – set up the Olivetti factory in Ivrea, he envisaged the need for greater autono- no one could foresee the tragic world events my for Italian regions, based on the feder- that would soon follow. The factory was a al model: a kind of federalism that was small brick building and employed just a clearly inspired by Carlo Catteneo, who
Camillo Olivetti with the Olivetti team, 1908.
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A builder of the future ...... had developed this idea on the basis of the Bruno Caizzi, Adriano’s contemporary and Swiss model (having lived in Switzerland an exile in Switzerland, tells us that Adriano from 1848 until his death in 1869). This was suddenly realised the importance of the not, however, the Catholic form of federal- great possibilities open to him were he to ism proposed by Vincenzo Gioberti, based take on a major role in the family business, on the hegemony of the Papal State, nor was without this necessarily meaning that he it a kind of federalism arising out of a desire would have to abandon his ideals. for secession, as is the case today in Italy. In 1925 Adriano left for the United States Like Carlo Cattaneo, Adriano Olivetti saw to study the way American industry was federalism as “a federation of people, not a organised. This experience, as Beniamino central state where liberty cannot grow, still de’ Liguori Carino wrote in a long treatise respecting and enjoying the benefits of a on Adriano Olivetti’s intellectual matura- strong national unity”. Another recurring tion, had a two-fold result: theme was state bureaucracy, which Adriano felt had to be “depoliticised” and entrusted to On the one hand, Adriano became thoroughly “valid and competent” individuals - early familiar with work organisation methods. He thoughts that he would later develop and visited the factories of some of the most impor- promote in his plans for the reform of the tant American companies… At the same time, State, i.e. his political movement and the the young Olivetti started to develop his ability Comunità 1 journal. to judge American society critically, where mass consumption and the capitalist system were rapidly evolving – something that was yet to be seen in Europe. It is not, therefore, unreal- istic to say that he may well have recognised and foreseen the contradictions inherent in American society and the US economy. In a let- ter to his family, he wrote that “here the dollar is really God and the dollar has excessive power in all aspects of American life”.
There is no doubt that upon his return to Italy, his intellectual baggage and practical experience were not the result of any pas- sive, uncritical acceptance of the American dream, but rather a mix of technical, social and organisational ingredients that would later be turned into an approach to business that had little to do with the American model. America yes, but not as a model In the meantime, Adriano’s initial rejection During these years, Adriano’s opposition to of the idea of entering his father’s firm grad- Fascism grew and his political views tend- ually became less adamant and his keenness ed towards Carlo Rosselli’s liberal social- for a career in journalism diminished, owing ism. Little by little, he developed his vision – as he himself would later admit – to his based on the concept of the person, being increasing aversion to Fascism. While still inspired by the French philosopher maintaining an active interest in intellectual Emmanuel Mounier. According to Mounier, pursuits and politics, Adriano started to it was absolutely necessary to go beyond study labour organisation and became more utilitarian individualism: the individual and more engrossed with the future of the should develop his potential within a sys- Olivetti factory. These were his constant tem of solidarity, represented by the com- concerns from this point on, sometimes munity in which he lives. This led to the Adriano Olivetti posing merging and converging, at other times idea of the community as a political, social for photographers, 1927. totally separate or even in direct conflict. and economic unit. A unit that should be
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Adriano Olivetti ......
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A builder of the future ...... side of things, he promoted modern produc- tion, reformism, the participation of work- ers, urban planning, contemporary archi- tecture and design”. In other words, he was in direct contradiction with the prevailing culture of the time. He broke new ground by spreading innovative ideas that were, how- ever, viewed with suspicion and in stark contrast with the works published under the Fascist regime reflecting its twenty-year policy of suppressing progressive thinking.
Today it is far from easy to appreciate the cultural climate at the time. Adriano’s criti- cism of Italy’s cultural lethargy was not a mere protest. He wanted to introduce reforms and put rigorous scientific values into practice. The catalogues of the Olivetti Foundation show us that many famous (mostly foreign) writers had their works published by Adriano’s publishing house, based on democratic participation at the Edizioni di Comunità. The authors pub- ground-roots level, without any imposing lished by Edizioni di Comunità wrote on a arbitrary force applied by the State. On the wide range of topics related to human sci- contrary, this unit should be federal in ences and included such figures as Jung, nature and thus capable of respecting local Piaget, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Claudel, the conditions and communities. French school of sociologists (Gurvitch, Adriano gradually built up his vision of soci- Bettelheim and Mounier) and the Swiss ety, which today we would call “global”. This authors Ramuz and Denis de Rougemont, slowly influenced all aspects of the family among many others; Domenico De Masi business and the surrounding urban area quoting Simone Weil’s reflections on the life and was at the root of his publishing project of a factory worker, Raymond Aron’s work and even a political movement. In fact, upon on relations between the West and the returning from his voluntary exile in USSR and Roethlisberger’s thoughts on Switzerland, Adriano Olivetti wrote his group cohesion in factories; and classics by L’ordine politico della Comunità 2 in 1945, a people such as Weber and Durkheim who political manifesto setting out his ideas. In “introduced bright new visions in the waste- 1946 he founded the Comunità journal, land of Italian publishing”. Gemeinschaft und quickly followed by the publishing house Gesellschaft by the German sociologist Edizioni di Comunità, which made a name Ferdinand Tönnies was, according to De for itself by publishing the works of previ- Masi, perhaps the most paradigmatic of all ously unknown authors in Italy dealing the books published by Adriano Olivetti’s Left: Th e first typewriter- with various fields of human science. Then, written letter by two years later in 1948, he founded his Camillo Olivetti to his wife, Luigia. “Community Movement” 3.
Top: Book cover of “L’ordine Adriano the publisher politico delle comunità” If truth be told, it seems that everything by Adriano Olivetti, 1945. that attracted Adriano Olivetti’s interest was still completely unheard of in Italy. On Right: an intellectual level, as the sociologist The symbol of Adriano Olivetti’s endeavours – Domenico De Masi points out, “he read and the bell with the published works on sociology, social philos- inscription “Humana Civilitas“. ophy, ethics and aesthetics; on the practical
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Adriano Olivetti ......
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A builder of the future ...... Edizioni di Comunità. “Here the warm, pro- Adriano Olivetti set forth in his famous tective, full-blooded and comforting com- essay Città dell’uomo (City of Man)”. munity – albeit also slow, bigoted, suspi- cious, oppressive and traditionalist – was contrasted with the cold, impersonal and alienating society, that was at the same time dynamic, technological, practical and innov- ative.” Edizioni di Comunità was, it could be said, an almost perfect synthesis of all these qualities, crowning Adriano’s dream (we might also say, utopia) of “reconciling com- munity and society, making everyday life more dynamic and introducing a certain quality of affection in the workplace”.
Adriano Olivetti’s intellectual pursuits were nearly always dictated by necessity and by an urgent desire to transfer his ideas and social passion to the industrial project he was developing. However, he managed to keep this quite distinct from the Edizioni di Comunità project, even though they were at times interrelated and often overlapping. His publishing house was a chance for intellectual and profes- sional development, which was just as important to him as the industrial world in Ivrea. Both offered opportunities to meet A man who made the twentieth century others and were a hotbed of ideas - places Just as it is hard for us to appreciate the where people gained experience that could intellectual climate arising from the cultur- then be allowed to burgeon and grow else- al complexity of those years, so it is difficult where, in other professional areas. to fully understand Adriano Olivetti’s own Adriano later set up other publishing hous- thoughts and reduce them to just a few es around Edizioni di Comunità, focussing principles. He saw things from a civil per- on essays and often going beyond the two spective, where culture impinges on simple rigid and narrow-minded schools of economic mechanisms, a free culture which thought resulting from the Cold War. He should have an economic and political func- attempted to indicate a “third way” as a tion with the ultimate goal of creating a bet- valid alternative to the opposing intellectu- ter society. There is no doubt that his inno- al standpoints of the time, conditioned by vative and at times disconcerting way of the marked dichotomy between Catholic seeing things left its mark on a country inter-classicism and Communist class faced with the challenge of rebuilding itself struggle. Adriano Olivetti’s publishing con- after the devastating joint effects of the cern gave great stimulus to a cultural Fascist regime and the Second World War. revival in Italy in the 1950s. As de’ Liguori It is, however, difficult for us today to under- Carino com-ments in his treatise, “Edizioni stand just how far-sighted Olivetti’s vision
Left: di Comunità guaranteed the liveliest and actually was, despite some few recognisable Front page of the greatest dissident thinkers of the time with contradictions and hasty intellectual short- magazine “Comunità“, No.1, Vol. 1, 1946. space in which to investigate ideas, plus cuts he took along the way. Owing to free, dynamic divulgence of these, at the Adriano Olivetti’s early death, his philoso- Top: same time attempting to give civil society phy is seen today as a collection of often Adriano winning the “Compasso d'Oro” and politics a new practical conscience and misunderstood ideals, not fully realised and (Golden Compass) for new techniques for the construction of an thus unable to withstand the test of time. the Lettera 22 by Marcello Nizzoli, 1954. ordered society along the lines that It would, in any case, be a mistake to believe
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Adriano Olivetti ......
Inauguration of the that Adriano Olivetti’s design was limited to Masi, who thoroughly agrees with Adriano’s Olivetti factory in just the microcosm of Ivrea and that his cultural and social aims. He believes that Pozzuoli (near Naples) on 23 April 1955. intellectual ambitions and politics arose Adriano should be considered as one of the from his views on industry alone. There was most influential figures of the twentieth a great deal of interest among Italians in the century: question of the southern regions of Italy – the Mezzogiorno – in the 1950s, inspired by Far from [sharing] the feverish greed for accu- Carlo Levi’s books and the social commit- mulating wealth, the ignorant adventurism of ment of intellectuals such as Danilo Dolci. gambling and speculation […] that still infect Adriano Olivetti, the pragmatist, translated so many businessmen today, we can say that this interest into important initiatives: Adriano Olivetti helped take business and extraordinary speeches concerning agrari- management from the industrial age into the an reform, the Cassa del Mezzogiorno4, the post-industrial age. Just as, in the same period, Matera town plan and the new Olivetti fac- Freud and Jung took traditional psychology on tory in Pozzuoli. to psychoanalysis, Picasso took the painting of When Adriano inherited the family business Piero della Francesca on to cubism, Einstein in the 1940s, it employed just a few hundred took Newton’s physics on to relativity, workers. By the time Adriano passed away Stravinsky took Romantic music on to atonali- while travelling on a train to Lausanne in ty and Joyce took the 19th century novel on to 1960, the Olivetti company had more than today’s expansive form. 45,000 employees, 27,000 of whom were based overseas. As de’ Liguori Carino puts * Fabrizio Fazioli, Doctor of Economic and it in his Adriano Olivetti e le Edizioni di Social Sciences (University of Neuchâtel), Comunità (1946-1960), Olivetti’s greatness journalist and author. Former editor in charge was linked to a concept of business: of the business section and “Micromacro” series for television of the Italian leg of Swiss public broadcasting, RSI. Currently lecturer in Economics and engaged in a variety of international projects.
[…]as a synthesis of international culture, advanced technology, efficient organisation and participative cooperation, all at the service of the community. It is linked to the concept of man as a combination of producer, consumer and citizen. It is linked to the concept of the State as an integrated system of multiple com- munities… It is linked to the concept of aesthet- ics as an added value contributing to the per- fection of the machinery… It is linked to the con- cept of culture, considered as the synthesis of science and technology, humanity and art.
I would like to close with another forceful point made by the sociologist Domenico De
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A builder of the future ......
View of the Olivetti Building in Pozzuoli, constructed in the early 1950s on a design by Luigi Cosenza.
1 “Community”, a political journal pub- Bibliography lished by Adriano from 1946 to 1960 BRUNO CAIZZI, Camillo e Adriano Olivetti, 2 “The Political Order of Communities” Utet, Turin, 1962. (Nuove Edizioni Ivrea, 1945) DOMENICO DE MASI, preface to Adriano 3 A political organisation promoting a fed- Olivetti e le Edizioni di Comunità, Quaderni eral union of local communities della Fondazione Olivetti, Rome, 2008.
4 A package of government measures to BENIAMINO DE’ LIGUORI CARINO, Adriano stimulate economic growth and develop- Olivetti e le edizioni di Comunità (1946-1960), ment in the Mezzogiorno Quaderni della Fondazione Olivetti, Rome, 2008.
VALERIO OCHETTO, Adriano Olivetti. Industriale e utopista, Cossavella Editore, Ivrea, 2000.
ADRIANO OLIVETTI, Città dell’uomo, Edizioni di Comunità, Milan, 1959.
ROBI RONZA, Tradizione e attualità del pen- siero federalista italiano, in Federalismo in cammino, Coscienza Svizzera and Armando Dadò, Locarno, 1995.
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A builder of the future ...... Adriano Olivetti, portrait of an enlightened businessman
by Valerio Castronovo*
Left: Adriano Olivetti, 1959.
On this page: Aerial view of the Olivetti factory in Ivrea, 1960s.
Adriano Olivetti ......
Camillo Olivetti and his Many words have been used to describe draft a project for the organisation of the family, with Adriano Adriano Olivetti, but I feel that perhaps State along federalist lines. A modern Olivetti at the far right in the back row. the most appropriate and congenial society, according to Adriano, with indus- description of this atypical entrepreneur try, the workers and culture coming is that given by Ferruccio Parri, leader of together to be part of an institutional the Italian Resistance and the first Prime order based on three principles: communi- Minister of democratic Italy: “positive ty, regionalism and federation. utopian”. Indeed, the salient feature of Adriano developed this theory during his Adriano’s work is his pragmatic utopi- period of exile in Switzerland, having fled anism. This was evident in his ability to Italy in October 1943 after the establish- combine culture and industry, but also in ment of the Salò Republic. He published his desire to introduce corporate social his ideas in L’ordine politico delle comunità 1, responsibility to business. Adriano’s vision but this was poorly received by many after was a “factory with a human face”. In the liberation of Italy, being considered the other words, a work community in step fruit of totally abstract conjecture. with the latest technology, but without Nevertheless, one person, Luigi Einaudi, machinery and mechanisms prevailing believed otherwise. Although he did not over the human factor; with profits for the agree with everything Adriano said, he company, but without the profit margin shared his vision of a form of self-gover- being the company’s only purpose and nance inspired by the principles of politi- yardstick. cal pluralism: the same principles that this With a Waldesian mother and Jewish future President of the Italian Republic father, Adriano was influenced during his believed were crucial if Italy was to avoid formative years by two different schools of reproducing the oligarchic and bureau- thought, eventually leading him to attempt cratic structures of the old centralised to conciliate humanism and industrialism. State along with the risk of parties with a On the one hand, at an intellectual level, mass ideology and a corresponding the Christian personalism of Maritain and machinery dominating the political scene. Mounier and the ideals of social Adriano Olivetti’s hope in the immediate reformism. On the other, in his role as a post-war years was, therefore, for a demo- modern businessman, the knowledge and cratic system based on local autonomy experience he gained during his several and new forms of representation and self- visits to the United States, which gave him governance, together with the creation of the opportunity to appreciate the practical a “factory community on a human scale” results and the social problems arising that would be a hot-bed of cultural and from developments in Taylorism and social evolution and not just a production Fordism. At the same time that the young machine. Adriano was listed as a “subversive” in the Of course, Adriano’s cultural background Fascist police’s files, he had started to and intuitive, contagious and almost prophetic intelligence – one of his unmis- takable qualities – helped him mature this ideology, but certain specific characteris- tics of his company and the area in which it was based were equally important. Indeed, the business he inherited upon his father’s death immediately after the war was still little more than a medium-sized factory, albeit with a great reputation. This and the local area – Canavese, form- ing the border of what was once the Duchy of Savoy – were conducive to Adriano’s intentions to create a business capable of combining innovative plans and open industrial relations, as well as his desire to
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A builder of the future ...... experiment with ground-roots democracy. This is what he called a “concrete commu- nity”, playing the leading role in a new form of social organisation on a local level. The influence of these two aspects – the intrinsic nature of a company whose potential success depended on creativity and technical excellence and the physiog- nomy of the Ivrea area, still mainly rural with small family-run farms and unaffect- ed by urban development – is reflected in the business type and strategies of the Olivetti factory in the 1950s. Increasing demand for new durable con- sumer goods was the main stimulus for the unprecedented output levels and cost-cut- ting at Olivetti, as well as at Fiat and other firms in the mechanical sector. It is a fact that in 1958 the number of typewriters sold was more than four and half times greater than at the start of the decade; sales of Olivetti portable typewriters had increased nine-fold, and sixty-six times as many calculators were being sold. The
efficient mechanised production lines. It was, after all, a firm of highly qualified and experienced professional technicians and engineers. While certain attitudes and great exper- tise in engineering guaranteed Olivetti’s success in production, its original designs success of the company was not just and graphics played an important role in thanks to the Italians’ growing use of type- making the Olivetti brand stand out on the writers and mechanical calculators, but market and easier to promote. Several also to Olivetti’s expansion on the overseas clever architects were behind this combi- markets. nation of functionality and aesthetics However, Olivetti’s amazing success was (Belgioioso, Perasutti, Rogers, Carlo also due to a series of factors and legacies Scarpa, Nizzoli and many more besides). deriving from Adriano’s particular busi- Their input also contributed to the setting ness strategies and the economic and up of branches in Italy and overseas, fur- social scenario in the Canavese area. ther strengthening the image and prestige Ever since its foundation in 1908 by of the Olivetti factory in Ivrea. Camillo Olivetti, the business had always The other factor that helped make Olivetti
Workers leaving the favoured a particularly personalised man- so unique was the local area. At the time, ICO Building, reading agement system (to the point that the the Canavese area was still unaffected by the first edition of the Olivetti factory founder and his son were also directly great migratory flows and a proliferation newspaper, “Giornale involved in training the factory foremen). of industrial activities, making it perfect as di Fabbrica Olivetti”, The business had remained faithful to its a model for experimenting with a pro- 1949. original vocation, mainly focussing on per- gramme aimed at the expansion of a large Poster calling for an fecting its operating procedures and company in harmony with the local peas- election meeting of the works council. investing in R&D, experimentation and ant economy, with power remaining in the
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Adriano Olivetti ......
View of the assembly hands of the small towns. In other words, department of the Adriano believed that there was a need to Olivetti factory in Pozzuoli, 1958. set up a few agricultural processing plants (Cartier-Bresson) in the valleys, rather than simply attract-
Right: ing workers off the fields and away from Book cover of a volume the valleys and into the cities in the search by G. Friedmann, 1955. for better paid jobs. The very figure of the typical Olivetti worker gave strength to Adriano’s Community Movement philoso- phy and the “Autonomia aziendale” firm- based trade union: the men had not com- pletely abandoned their links with the countryside around Ivrea, as they still lived in their hometowns and their families continued to own and farm small lots of agricultural land. Both these initiatives were intended to free the working classes from psychological servitude and to avoid the risk of the workers’ alienation on the talism and socialism, but also to fully understand the relevance for contempo- rary society of scientific knowledge, the transformation of work, law as a technique in social organisation, town planning as a means towards a better standard of living and environmental concerns. Then again, Adriano Olivetti could depend upon a large staff of intellectuals/man- agers and consultants coming from vari- ous fields of social science and humanities, responsible for both the running of his business and the cultural relations inher- ent in his projects. All members of staff assembly lines and anonymity in the large shared the same vision, free of any form of factory. specialism. They included sociologists, Put briefly, Olivetti became a company economists, psychologists, politologists, famed for the high quality and excellent architects and designers, but also writers design of its products, while the local area and scholars. There is no need to list their was immune to the problems of industrial names here; suffice to say, all (or nearly gigantism and excessive urban congestion. all) were what we could call “third force” These were the bases that allowed Adriano in their orientation, i.e. lay left-wingers Olivetti to create a pioneering industrial with a neo-enlightened education and a complex, with an avant-garde business cul- tendency to borrow the criteria and mod- ture and distinctly social policies. els of the progressive North European and Adriano’s ideas and intuitions proved cru- American cultures. cial. They were not based on positivism or What Adriano achieved during the 1950s the canons of idealism and Marxism, but was quite unique, an extraordinary entre- rather on his won cultural development preneurial adventure for that time and one process, by studying the works of thinkers that acted as a model yet to be equalled. and intellectuals such as Schumpeter, An achievement that not only brought bril- Kelsen, Friedmann, Mounier, Simone Weil liant economic results, but also had singu- and Mumford. Thanks to his studies, lar social objectives. It gave his managers Adriano was able not only to better under- the chance to extend their horizons and do stand the fundamental problems of capi- new things, no longer limited to their own
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A builder of the future ...... areas of expertise. The factory workers 1950. At the same time he also arranged to received wages a third higher than those decentralise some of the companies serv- foreseen in the national contracts. ing the Olivetti factory in the surrounding Moreover, Adriano introduced a range of towns and founded an Institute (IRUR) to recognised social services to which all provide assistance in training for small workers had access (housing, kinder- firms and hi-tech agricultural coopera- gartens, summer camps, transportation, tives in the local countryside. professional schools and many forms of In fact the Canavese urban development welfare). The company library contained plan he promoted in 1951, the cultural and books dealing with a wide range of sub- educational work carried out by the jects, even radical and unorthodox trends. Community Movement in several small Conferences were held every Monday in towns and the IRUR investment plans for the cultural centres, open to blue- and irrigation, tree planting and infrastructure white-collar workers alike. Speakers from and for “integrated development” of agri- all walks of life and of different viewpoints cultural and industry all helped to land- were invited – Marxists, Liberals, scape the local area and give a special feel Catholics and so on – at a time when Italy to community life there. These initiatives was divided by fierce political and ideolog- also ensured a socially acceptable dimen- ical debate. sion to offset the dynamic development of the Olivetti factory, which became a major employer and industrial concern in the space of just a few years. Naturally enough, Adriano’s social policies came up against a few problems and a cer- tain amount of resistance: the general industrial establishment viewed his pro- jects with aversion and scepticism; the main unions were either politically biased or short-sighted and thus considered Olivetti’s new industrial relations as a sort
These were among the innovative initia- tives that Adriano Olivetti introduced in his factory, in line with his social beliefs. But he was also active and far-sighted in local politics. He had had direct experi- ence of the Swiss model and this obviously influenced him. Indeed, Adriano believed in the idea of a federation of small or medi- um-sized communities, the primary cells of state organisation allowing for both direct relations between the elected and the electors and the development of spe- Inauguration of the cial forms of self-governance. first construction phase of the housing He wanted to avoid at all costs the depri- development for vation of authority for civil society by a employees of the Olivetti factory in bureaucratic State and the oligarchy of Pozzuoli on 23 April the main political parties. 1955. Adriano tried to give his project real con-
Right: sistency at Ivrea and certain centres in Two employees choos- the Canavese area administered by the ing books in the Olivetti factory library, 1960s. Community Movement that he set up in
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Adriano Olivetti ......
Roberto Olivetti visiting the headquarters of Olivetti Underwood in Toronto (Canada), 1969. (Tomiczek Len)
of modern patronising paternalism or lost in his dream of combining industrial even a form of mystification. progress and economic democracy, tech- In practice, Adriano did not want to be nological efficiency and social equality. called an enlightened “patron” by his And yet Adriano managed to pull off a admirers. Instead, he felt himself to be, major deal in 1959, just a year before his and wanted to be, a “reformer”. To all premature death: the purchase of intents and purposes, his practical initia- Underwood. Italian industry had never tives (like his revolutionary visions) before been able to negotiate or even con- shared a common denominator: an inspi- sider such an important international ration arising from and based on a politi- deal, i.e. a takeover bid for one of the great cal-cultural project. This led him even to American “giants” – the very company conceive the idea of converting his busi- that had introduced the first prototype for ness into a foundation one day, based on a a typewriter in the late 1800s and which new form of ownership where all the com- had monopolised one of the most exclusive ponents involved in production, culture fields in precision machinery for many and employment would be fairly repre- decades, thanks to mass production of sented. hundreds of thousands of typewriters each Adriano was, therefore, a man who went year. Underwood was on a par with Singer against the grain. He has been variously for sewing machines and Ford for the called a dare-devil, a visionary and a man automobile. A masterstroke that neither
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A builder of the future ...... Camillo nor Adriano Olivetti (having been to Hartford several times to look and learn) would ever have imagined them- selves capable of, even in their wildest dreams . This was not Adriano’s only great achieve- ment in this respect. He also managed to compete directly with IBM (before the Japanese) in a strategic sector: electron- ics. Adriano and his son Roberto had in fact fully realised the potential in switch- ing from transistors to integrated circuits and semiconductors. So much so that they had gained the support of Enrico Fermi and set up a team of scientists and experts in collaboration with the University of Pisa. In 1959 Olivetti produced the first series of the “Elea” mainframe computers. Unfortunately, after Adriano’s death in February 1960, a group of financial advi- sors (including many major names in Italian industry and finance) appointed to reorganise Olivetti made a serious error of judgment when they wrote off computers as a futuristic dream or, at most, a mere toy. Thus it was that, a few years later, the Electronics Division at Olivetti was sold off to General Electric.
1 “The Political Order of Communities” (Nuove Edizioni Ivrea, 1945)
* Valerio Castronovo, President of the Economic and Business Study Centre in Roberto Olivetti accepting the honorary Rome; historian of Italian economics and doctorate degree business awarded by the Faculty of Political Science “C. Alfieri” posthu- mously to Adriano Olivetti (who had died on 27 February that year). May 1960, Florence. (Photo Locchi - Firenze)
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A builder of the future ...... Adriano Olivetti: a dream and reality
by Mauro Leo Baranzini and Fabrizio Fazioli*
Left: Olivetti ad in the 1970s (Sergio Libis).
On this page: Adriano Olivetti in a crowd.
Adriano Olivetti ...... Economic sciences and business theory Super-profit maximisation Economic scholars always struggle when A firm’s super-profit (or surplus profit) is asked to provide an unbiased analysis of equal to the difference between its earn- the behaviour of economic players. Back ings and total costs; in theory this can be in the late 1700s Adam Smith of Scotland maximised through costs (supply) and (1723-1790) described in great detail the earnings (demand) functions. This hypoth- advantages to be gained from a division esis is based on: of labour within the factory and the invis- ible hand of businessmen, in the supreme 1. the conviction that super-profits can be interest of both them and society as a recorded in a precise way; this calls for whole. The Marginalists (1870-c.1936) proper knowledge of the value of total concerned themselves with a combina- earnings and total costs over a long pro- tion of production factors, aimed at let- duction period; ting businesses minimise costs or max- imise short-term profits. Alfred Marshall 2. the concept of holistic business, with a (1842-1924) of Cambridge University unique inseparable decision-making defined the conditions whereby a busi- unit acting according to the same crite- ness, in conditions of perfect competi- ria as the old entrepreneur/boss/man- tion, can maximise its short-term super- ager. profit. Nevertheless, Marshall only con- sidered the manufacturing technology The concept of super-profit maximisation rather than corporate strategies. The dominated micro-economics analysis from end of the 1920s saw great developments 1870 to around 1950. New models were then in the theory of the firm, again in formulated. Cambridge (UK). Thanks first of all to the surprising analysis by Piero Sraffa Baumol’s theory of sales maximisation (1898-1983), Richard Kahn (1905-1989) (or total revenue) and Joan Robinson (1903-1983) who came William Baumol proposed the first manage- up with models of imperfect markets, rial theory as an alternative to super-profit such as the monopoly, the oligopoly and maximisation, i.e. sales revenue maximisa- monopolistic competition. These were tion, based on the following premises: important contributions, helping us to understand the mechanisms of the 1. the separation of ownership of the firm micro-economy and various types of from its effective day-to-day running is market. But it was not until the years typical of a modern business; this gives after the Second World War that modern the directors/managers a certain managerial theories evolved. degree of freedom in the management of the firm, letting them aim for max- The different business goals imised sales rather than maximised A private firm’s strategies and goals are super-profit; determined by: (a) its legal standing (if owned directly by an individual or 2. the managers’ remuneration, including through a company); (b) the type of mar- bonuses and fringe benefits, are linked ket on which it operates (perfect competi- to the sales levels rather than profit lev- tion, monopolistic competition, monopoly, els; oligopoly); and (c) the power relations between groups with different interests 3. financial institutes tend to attach more (shareholders, managers, unions and importance to the volume of sales or creditors). It should be noted that the way total earnings when asked to finance medium and major enterprises are organ- new investments; ised today differs from that of the classic family-run company in the past, both in 4. in non-competitive markets a larger terms of their size and organisation and market share allows companies to: (a) their market share. control and discourage the entrance of
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A builder of the future ...... new competitors; (b) control the exist- utility function of the managers concerns ing competitors’ activities, curbing any salaries, power, job security and corporate ambitions they may have to expand; (c) status; the shareholders/owners have a util- exercise greater power over prices; (d) ity function that includes, first and fore- exercise a certain amount of control most, the profits and the size of the capital. over the suppliers of raw materials; (e) control distribution channels better; According to Marris, the managerial class does not seek to maximise the absolute size 5. personnel policies are more relaxed of the firm, but rather its rate of growth. when sales are expanding, as this Koutsoyiannis points out that “managers implies a fall in the fixed costs/total prefer to be promoted within the same costs ratio; expanding organisation rather than have to move to a larger organisation where the 6. large sales, increasing over time, give atmosphere could be hostile for the new the directors/managers a certain pres- entrant”. Managers therefore aim for max- tige, whereas large profits are mainly to imisation of the growth rate of the firm the advantage of the shareholders/own- rather than its size. ers; John Kenneth Galbraith’s technostruc- 7. the correlation between sales levels and ture the managers’ remuneration is the John Kenneth Galbraith’s technostructure result of (a) the need to offer competi- theory is based on the conviction that large tive salaries to recruit lower or medium firms have the possibility of creating their level managerial staff; (b) the manageri- own demand through advertising and R&D. al structure, which is simpler for small Galbraith believes that the figure of the companies and more complex for larger shareholder/owner is slipping into the back- ones; (c) the principle according to ground. which greater levels of responsibility correspond to higher remuneration.
To sum up, Baumol believes that managers seek to maximise sales in order to increase their corporate status in running large companies, and their power is strictly linked to productivity factors, such as human capital, machinery, technology and financial capital. Their power is also con- nected to market share.
Robin Marris’ model of growth rates in the managerial firm […] the entrepreneur, as the directing force of The Cambridge economist Robin Marris the enterprise, [has been replaced] with man- holds that a firm tends to maximise the agement. This is a collective and imperfectly “long run growth rate”, expressed by the defined entity; in the large corporation it rate of growth in demand for a firm’s prod- embraces chairman, president, those vice ucts and its share capital. By maximising presidents with important staff or depart- both the rate of growth in demand and mental responsibility, occupants of the major share capital, managers pursue a two-fold staff positions and, perhaps, division or goal: to maximise their utility (or job secu- department heads […]. This latter group is rity) and, at the same time, the expecta- very large; it extends from the most senior tions of the shareholders/owners. Here we officials of the corporation to where it meets,
Adriano Olivetti in should remember that the managerial at the outer perimeter, the white- and blue- a department of the models are based on clear s eparation of the collar workers whose function is to conform ICO factory in Ivrea. (Publifoto) ownership and the control of the firm. The more or less mechanically to instruction or
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Adriano Olivetti ......
Workers at the Olivetti factory in Pozzuoli, 1958. (Cartier-Bresson)
routine. It embraces all who bring specialised Behind this there was also a business plan of knowledge, talent or experience to group global impact, which in 1960, the year of decision-making. This, not the management, Adriano Olivetti’s premature death, took the is the guiding intelligence - the brain - of the number of employees to 16,000 in Italy, not enterprise. There is no name for all who par- counting the thousands overseas, and the ticipate in group decision-making or the 69% equity held in the American company organisation which they form. I propose to Underwood (which had been the world leader call this organisation the Technostructure. for decades). Adriano Olivetti’s managerial (JKG) qualities were internationally recognised.
The private firm: maximum profit and The Ivrea company had become a solid, well social responsibility respected concern. Foreign experts stated The Olivetti company embodies many of the that Olivetti was an excellent firm, with a elements mentioned above and broke new boss full of ingenious ideas and an excellent ground in various ways. When we speak of a workforce and technicians, which offered business with a strong sense of “social strong, elegant products, created effective responsibility”, we imagine a third or fourth advertising and had a tradition of upright generation entrepreneur with enormous commercial morality (CAIZZI, 1962, page 231). financial means, independent of his entre- preneurial qualities. In the case of Camillo Adriano Olivetti was very committed to (father) and Adriano (son) Olivetti, we have “social responsibility”, completely breaking instead people with outstanding managerial with the traditional theory of the firm: and entrepreneurial skills. As Bruno Caizzi said (1962, page 233): The factories, administrative offices and research centres were conceived on a human The Ivrea-based company’s fortune was that a scale “so that [the worker] could find in his man of Adriano’s fibre arrived, someone who everyday workplace a means for redemption had no need to be encouraged to take risks. and not an instrument of torment. That is why Adriano could see the opportunities and was we wanted low windows, open courtyards and unparalleled in his ability to seize them. His the trees in the garden to exclude all idea of disposition meant he firmly took the initiative constraint and a hostile enclosure” (CAIZZI, and exploited his experience [...]. 1962, page 223).
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A builder of the future ...... The roots of Adriano Olivetti’s concern may pated, as it were, the managerial theories of be found in this personal memory: the firm, of long run growth maximisation. The workforce often rewarded Olivetti for Way back in August 1914, when I was 13 years this policy in their favour. For instance, old, my father sent me to work in the factory. when the occupying Nazis decided to bomb I quickly realised that I hated the boring the factory on several occasions during the repetitive work; a torture for the spirit that Second World War, the workers removed was imprisoned for endless hours and hours, some of the machinery, hiding the equip- in the dark and blackness of an old workshop. ment in their own homes, to await better I did not enter the factory again for many times. The machinery was returned to the years, determined that I would not make my factory immediately after the armistice so living in my father’s factory. I would go past that producti on could start again. the red brick factory walls, ashamed of my freedom as a student, with sympathy and con- Adriano Olivetti was also ahead of the cern for all those who tirelessly worked with- times in his recruitment and training in, day after day (Adriano Olivetti, quoted by strategies. The assembly line still dominat- CAIZZI, 1962, page 132). ed the automobile industry until about 1970, using unskilled labour: absenteeism Adriano Olivetti would later replace the “old and demotivation were rife as a conse- smoky workshop” with a well lit, reassuring quence. Olivetti, however, was already environment for his workforce. He reduced employing the very best of the technicians their working hours and toil, guaranteed his leaving the polytechnics, universities and workers – at all levels – the best welfare technical schools in the 1950s. measures and the best lodgings possible. Shortly before he died, he told his workers: The structural transformation of the company has seen a proportional rise [...] in the number Now that I too have worked with you for of engineers and technicians with respect to many years, I still cannot forget or accept the general clerks, and in the number of skilled social differences, unless as a situation to be workers with respect to simple unskilled work- redeemed, a heavy responsibility full of duty. ers. The factory is employing a growing num- Sometimes, when I stop briefly and see the ber of university and high school graduates bright windows of those working a double and specialists, and it calls for workers with a shift at the automatic lathes, I want [...] to go certain degree of professional preparation and speak to them, thanking them as they from the country and, even at the lowest level work at those machines that I have known for of the pyramid, it requires better school educa- so many years (ADRIANO OLIVETTI, quoted by tion, and it works to promote this (CAIZZI, CAIZZI, 1962, pages 133-4). 1962, page 241).
The priority he gave to employment over Here too, Adriano Olivetti foresaw the short-term profits can be seen in Adriano introduction of the “Japanese model”, Olivetti’s reaction to the mini-recession in introduced in the 1970s, which replaced 1952, when a slowdown in the global econo- my led to a sharp fall in sales of typewriters and calculators. According to the economic theory in vogue at the time, the Olivetti mangers should have cut output and kept prices steady to minimise losses. Adriano Olivetti’s reaction, however, was quite dif- ferent: he immediately launched on a more View of the executive dynamic and daring expansion strategy. management building Some 700 new salesmen were employed in of the Olivetti factory in Pozzuoli, constructed Italy that year, prices were cut and many in the early 1950s on a new branches opened. This policy proved design b y Luigi Cosenza. to be a great success. His reaction antici-
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Adriano Olivetti ......
Graduates of the two- Ford’s “assembly chain”. Here it is a team friendships, the distances between sellers year training pro- of specialists that make the entire machine and buyers and many other factors gramme for electri- cians, participating in a thanks to modern efficient machinery and besides”. These are the principles that laboratory experiment. robots: gone are those old repetitive jobs. characterised our society in the years lead-
The building housing Already in the 1950s Olivetti was investing ing up to the twentieth century. With a few the Olivetti research the greater part of its profits in technologi- significant exceptions, however, such as the and development cally advanced machinery and in research, Olivetti dynasty, for whom human beings department in Ivrea, built in 1954/55 on a recruiting the best physicists and came first, not the fast buck. design by Eduardo researchers available. Increasing invest- Vittoria. ment in physical capital is at the base of the The spirit of the age Japanese model, which was recently adopt- At this point it is worth looking at the social and historical context in which Adriano Olivetti’s project grew and oper- ated: it was a unique, glorious period of general economic boom, increased well - being and democratic aspirations of the people. Pressure for social change was, if truth be said, already felt after the First World War, but the recession in the 1930s and then the Second World War slowed things down. It was only in the 1950s that
ed by the Fiat Italiana model plant at Melfi, which uses the same Japanese technique, with outsourcing of s ome of the just-on- time and on-line components purchased from external companies.
Adriano Olivetti’s philosophy, as we will see below, was charged with ethical and human values and was totally different to the raider mentality that became fashion- able in the last two decades of the twenti- eth century. “Make a fast buck” is the spec- ulators’ motto. The free market and uneth- ical competitiveness (at any price) have become the norm in many sectors of the it became urgent, when people generally economy today. The problem lies in the felt prosperity to be their right and that fact that the free market scenario is “short even work could play a significant part in sighted”. The Lombard historian Raul the process of redistributing wealth. Merzario, introducing Stefania Bianchi’s There was even the belief that an effective book Le terre dei Turconi (The Land of the economic democracy could finally follow Turconi), discussed the notion of price in universal suffrage in the democratic the 1700s and 1800s in upper Lombardy. process, where the economy would be Prices were, of course, linked to wheat and more participative and the social needs of the business strategies of landowners, but the people would be taken into account. In the author “shows us that, with the figures other words, growth was the keyword and in hand, prices for centuries during the not just at Olivetti: production, productiv- Modern Age were determined not only by ity, employment, salaries, prices, con- economic factors, but also – and even more sumption, savings, investments, public so – by social values, such as class, power, spending… in a general unique climate that the importance of personal consumption was the post-war economic miracle. by the peasants, family relationships, Adriano Olivetti’s philosophy perfectly fits
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A builder of the future ......
Apprentice in the the strong positivistic trend of the age, but a manner less degrading to the employees training centre for added a completely new dimension to this, and rendering things more participative. mechanics, 1962. deriving from his culture and the environ- In her autobiography, Lessico famigliare, ments he frequented when still a young Natalia Ginzburg frequently refers to man. Some have called it a utopia, others a Adriano Olivetti, who had married her sis- vision. Whatever term we may use, it pro- ter Paola. In her warm, almost psychoana- vided the drive for a business project that lytical portrait of Adriano, she describes went well beyond a merely economic him as being “affectionate, awkward and result. During this period of great eupho- shy. He loved eating cakes...”. She also ria and common economic success, two speaks kindly of him when she recalls how different business models existed in Turin: he helped her father to flee the Germans the Agnelli model and the Olivetti model. and again, when he “came to us, as we were Indeed, this gave rise to a certain amount fleeing that house, to get Turati, he was out of polemics. For example, Adriano Olivetti, of breath, frightened and yet happy, when called the red entrepreneur, never joined he managed to save someone”. Adriano’s Confindustria, thus showing his disaffec- professional training was almost unique in tion for the business doctrine of the time. Italy at the time. His parents came from a very learned background. His father At the age of twenty-five, Adriano went to Camillo, the founder of Olivetti, had taught the United States where he became fasci- at Stanford in California and was a non- nated by Fordism, at least initially. He practising Jew with socialist views. actually managed to convince his father to Adriano’s mother, the daughter of a reorganise the factory in a completely dif- Waldensian shepherd and a great preacher, ferent manner, but at the same time he also had a strong influence on his beliefs. tried to go beyond the purely Taylorian These two backgrounds made for a very management techniques, applying them in moral family and the ideal environment to
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Adriano Olivetti ......
Camillo Olivetti spur a young man to dedicate his life to the and attend company schools. From the age (1868 – 1943) in the good of his fellow man. of the typewriter (early 1900s) to that of cal- 1930s at an address of a staff assembly in culators and personal computers, the struc- the inner courtyard Adriano’s utopia tures and facilities provided for the families of the first factory building. Positivism and the ideas of the Enlightenment of Olivetti employees formed an authentic left their mark on Adriano Olivetti’s intellec- model of corporate welfare. tual development and philosophy, as well as Fordism, socialism and many aspects of The Olivetti legend also evolved thanks to the American life – all typical of the 1900s. His presence of an unusual group of intellectuals, outlook changed towards the end of the Adriano’s close collaborators: town planners Second World War, however. For Adriano, and designers, like Zevi and Sottsass, poets socialism and liberal thought were no such as Giudici, writers like Volponi (can you longer enough. He started to develop his imagine an author as the personnel manager own original concept of business and soci- of a factory today?), sociologists such as Ferrarotti and academics like Pampaloni. Luciano Gallino, a famous Italian industrial sociologist, also worked at Ivrea. In 2001 he wrote an invented interview with Adriano Olivetti: “I was there, I took part in creating the Community Movement conceived by Olivetti back in 1948. He loved the people, that’s why Adriano combined Fordism and socialism”. In 2005 Luciano Gallino pub- lished his L’impresa irresponsabile (The Irresponsible Firm), probably thinking of a firm the exact opposite to Olivetti:
A firm may be called irresponsible if it feels it ety, leading to the idea of the Community: has no duty, apart from its legal obligations, a mixture of utopia and federalism, local to answer to any public authority or public autonomy and direct democracy (one opinion concerning the economic, social or result of Adriano’s time in Switzerland environmental consequences of its activities during the war). The idea of Community [...]. Working conditions, prices, transporta- would even become a political movement tion, the environment, leisure, food, the way a and a publishing project – the Edizioni di family is organised, the chance to build one- Comunità. The year he died, Adriano pub- self a life: whether we like it or not, these all lished his book Città dell’uomo (City of depend on the decisions of a firm’s manage- Man), containing a collection of his articles ment, more than the decisions of state govern- and speeches on the Community ment [...]. Unfortunately, these social respon- Movement, the world of industry, town sibilities of the firm are all too often subordi- planning and the local area, the problems of nate to other priorities. the Mezzogiorno (southern regions of Italy), and the vision of an integrated, par- None of this could be seen in the responsible ticipatory and responsible society. His and innovative way that Adriano Olivetti actions were consistent with his thoughts. viewed his business. In 1955, in a speech to The factory in Ivrea was one and the same the workers, he posed a few questions that, as the city, with a kind of reciprocal rela- of course, were never answered, especially tionship with the local area. However, if we consider industry today: Adriano’s Ivrea differed from the company town in Crespi d’Adda and the Falck steel- Can industry set itself goals? Are these simply works in Sesto San Giovanni: there was found in the profit indexes? Isn’t there some- none of the nineteenth-century paternalism thing more fascinating beyond the normal that kept the workers’ families tied to the rhythm of business, maybe a destination or a factory, having them live in factory lodgings vocation, in the life of a factory?
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A builder of the future ......
The American sociolo- This is what the philosopher Umberto with his own thoughts, problems, expecta- gist Lewis Mumford vis- Galimberti said in an interview on Swiss tions and dreams. Someone who should iting the Olivetti factory in 1957. television in February 2010: (and needs to) work, of course, but not in a factory-prison, but rather in a factory- Olivetti would not survive today, indeed it community. With extraordinary results has not survived. The reason for this is that if and cutting-edge technological solutions. you focus on mankind, then invariably you Then again, the Italian dream – that of the are kept in check by those who focus on Agnelli family – took the form of a brand- money. Olivetti had a dream, a very impor- new car and the assembly line. Hard, much tant utopia, and created a culture that had criticised, but stable. A little skill, lots of man and his realisation as the centre of out- effort and, especially, no need to think: in put. Olivetti invited industry to look at soci- perfect Henry Ford style. ety. I would have liked to point this fact out A book was published in 2005, by which to Adriano Olivetti, and not because I find time Adriano Olivetti’s dream had certain- fault with his intentions, but simply because ly died, with the revealing title of Uomini e I see how society works today. It works exact- lavoro alla Olivetti (Men and Work at ly like a technostructure, with men inserted Olivetti), edited by Francesco Novara, in the company to be parts of the machinery, Renato Rozzi and Roberta Garruccio. It not individuals with their own desires, aspi- contains a series of testimonials by people rations and will. This is where Adriano from all walks of life: shop-floor workers, Olivetti’s utopia lies. engineers, architects and consultants, who all played an important part in the Olivetti Man at the centre of the factory project, before and after Adriano. The Mankind. Not a part of a well-oiled corpo- intention of this book is to freeze human rate machine, something to tame and make memory in time, to give it voice and to con- productive, just a nother cog in the wheel, tribute in some way to cultivating what has but an individual to be considered as such, now become the Olivetti legend. An instance of social memory. Scores of voic- es: we read the criticism – some garbed in tactful terms, others outright cruel – of Adriano Olivetti’s successors, those who gradually dismantled this industrial jewel, bit by bit, and reduced it to a dream and utopia. This might sound a bit bizarre today, when everyone claims to be “Olivettian”, though without really being it and without sharing the values Adriano Olivetti left us. One of the many voices stands out, found in the introduction to the book. It sounds much like an epitaph:
If in other factories the worker was just part of the general anonymous mass, at Olivetti he was a well-known distinct individual, with his own story to tell and his own work- ing life.
The late Francesco Novara worked closely with Adriano and was head of the Industrial Psychology Centre at Olivetti from the 1950s until 1992. Editor of the book, he dedicates a sort of “day after” essay to the firm and its prime mover, con- cluding it with these words:
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Adriano Olivetti ...... The old builders of the future in industry have Perhaps the portrait that Adriano would now been replaced by share hunters, stock have liked the best is Natalia Ginzburg’s exchange speculators, monopoly grabbers, slightly nostalgic and enigmatic descrip- architects of cross-shareholding and corpo- tion of him in Lessico famigliare: rate pyramids. These voices bear witness to the world of work – now humiliated – in I met him in the street in Rome one day during today’s torn and disoriented society, the vic- the Nazi occupation. He was alone, wander- tim of the risks of a financialised economy. ing around, his eyes lost in his constant They recall the lasting value of the reasons for dreams, veiled as it were by blue mists. He the company’s success: its responsibility and was dressed like everyone else, but somehow ability to introduce constant innovation. seemed a beggar among the crowd and yet, at Innovation that was realistic and daring, the same time, also a king. A king in exile, it rational and imaginative, aimed at the excel- seemed to me. lence of the products, the quality of life for workers and improvements in social life. * Mauro Leo Baranzini, Full Professor, University of Lugano, and Member of the Are there any labels that haven’t been used Lombard Institute of Science and Letters, to describe Adriano Olivetti these past Milan. fifty years since his death? The red entre- preneur, pioneer of innovation, icon of a dif- * Fabrizio Fazioli, Doctor of Economic and ferent capitalism, enlightened master and Social Sciences (University of Neuchâtel), many more besides – all references that journalist and author. Former editor in charge Olivetti himself would probably have of the business section and “Micromacro” appreciated, references that clearly series for television of the Italian leg of Swiss express the distance in time, typical for a public broadcasting, RSI. Currently lecturer person who died in the midst of intense in Economics and engaged in a variety of activity, at the head of an industrial empire international projects. that employed tens of thousands. There is no doubt that there has never been anoth- er such figure in the history of industry and culture – at least in Italy – capable of creating such a legend as “Adriano and Olivetti”. The man and his values are still often referred to today, almost as a con- trast to our modern controversial economy and industrial scene, so often indecipher- able, confused and without direction.
Indro Montanelli once wrote in response to a reader who asked what exactly made Adriano Olivetti so unique:
[...] he wanted to invent a completely new model of business where capital and work were associated. This was the ideal, or mirage, behind the famous Olivetti Community. Perhaps its creator never realised just how this challenged the interests of both the employers and the unions, who survive thanks to the con- flict of their interests. [...] Olivetti was perfect- ly aware of this contraposition, but was con- vinced he could overcome it. And this was his real Utopia.
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Adriano Olivetti at an address in the “Salone dei 2000”, a hall of the Ivrea factory works, 29 October 1948.
Bibliography
M AURO L. BARANZINI, Giandemetrio Marangoni and Sergio Rossi, Micro- e Macro-Economia, Cedam, Padua, 2001.
BRUNO CAIZZI, Gli Olivetti, UTET, Turin, 1962.
LUCIANO GALLINO, L’impresa responsabile. Un’intervista su Adriano Olivetti, Einaudi, Turin, 2001.
LUCIANO GALLINO, L’impresa irresponsabile, Einaudi, Turin, 2005.
NATALIA GINZBURG, Lessico famigliare, Einaudi, Turin, 1963.
RAUL MERZARIO, Preface to Stefania Bianchi, Le terre dei Turconi, Dadò, Locarno, 1999.
FRANCESCO NOVARA, Renato Rozzi and Roberta Garruccio (editors) Uomini e lavoro alla Olivetti, Mondadori, Milan, 2005.
ADRIANO OLIVETTI, Città dell’uomo, Edizioni di Comunità, Milan, 1959.
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A builder of the future ...... Community and cantons: the search for political freedom
by Davide Cadeddu*
Left: Adriano Olivetti at his work desk, 1958.
On this page: During the period of Fascism, Adriano Olivetti was regarded as a “subversive”. (Picture from “Storia Illustrata”, A. Mondadori Editore)
Adriano Olivetti ...... In September 1945, Adriano Olivetti Adriano was politically active in the period received the final proofs of his book L’ordine between the autumn of 1942 and February politico delle Comunità (The Political Order 1944, when he was forced to flee to of Communities) from a printer in Samedan Switzerland together with his secretary ( Oberengadin). He had started working on Wanda Soavi to escape capture by the this book in 1942 and finished it during his Italian carabinieri and Military Information period of exile during the Second World Service. In fact, after a daring escape from War in Switzerland. Before publishing this the Regina Coeli jail in Rome where they had work – which he intended to act as a guide been held for a few months, they were still for all his future endeavours – Adriano, the being sought by the authorities in connec- man of dialogue, had spoken with a great tion with an attempt to create a link number of people. Traces of these dealings between the Allies, the antifascists, the remain in his memoirs, his private corre- armed forces, the Vatican and the Italian spondence and the documents that the Monarchy. Adriano became agent number Italian State Archive and archives in other 660 at the Office of Strategic Services in countries now make available for public June 1943 (his name had been put forward consultation. In fact, through his studies, by Egidio Reale among others). This made it observations and conversations Adriano easy for Olivetti – with the code name sought to understand which institutional “Brown” – to gain the ear of the Special model would have best guaranteed freedom Operations Executive. However, despite
of thought in a State founded on a socialist being considered a valuable and dependable economic system1. source of information, the Allies’ strategic Switzerland proved to be important for plans were not compatible with what him. It was a place where he met people sig- Adriano proposed after crossing the border nific ant to him, and both the place and peo- into Switzerland2. “Bearing in mind the ple served as a source of inspiration. In the dominant British attitude and the lack of past, he had been able to feel at home there. determination shown by the Italians”, we In the 1930s Adriano had often been in should remember that “from the middle of Geneva, a guest of the antifascist Guglielmo 1942 to the fall of Mussolini in July 1943 Ferrero, and he had probably also met there were no real chances of reaching a Ignazio Silone in Zurich. While the former separate peace between the Allied Powers introduced him to the political philosophy of and Italy”3. Umberto Campagnolo (who would later During these months Adriano was not only From left to right: play an important role in sett ing up the fac- busy in antifascis t activities, but he also A. Olivetti, tory library at Ing. C. Olivetti & C. and started to develop a plan for institutional Citta dell’uomo, 1960. Adriano’s publishing house Nuove Edizioni and social reform focused on the local polit- Ivrea, the forerunner of the more famous ical body, which he called the “Community”. Various authors, Il Dio che è fallito, Edizioni di Comunità), the latter was almost He proposed this to several Italians and for- 1950. certainly responsible for putting him in con- eigners 4. Adriano managed to reach A. Olivetti, tact with the American secret service in Switzerland via San Pietro, near Stabio, Fini e fine della politica, 1949. January 1943. with the help of the Ospedale Italiano in
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A builder of the future ...... Lugano. He then stayed mainly in Champfèr, Switzerland was doubtlessly one of his a few kilometres from St. Moritz, in the main sources of inspiration, in addition to Chesa Guardalej Hotel, until May 1945. This the United States and the United Kingdom. was where he matured his ideas, already set Concerning the function that the forth in his Memorandum sullo Stato Federale Community should have in Italy, he wrote delle Comunità in Italia (Memorandum on that it represented a sort of “rationalisation the Federal State of Communities in Italy) in of the Swiss canton” or, better, “its adapta- May 1943. Switzerland offered him the tion to Italian tradition”: once perfected, it chance to reflect and to compare his ideas would be capable of “tackling the complex and opinions with those of many other tasks of modern society”. In fact, while the Italian antifascists in exile in Switzerland. Swiss canton had “exclusively historical” Adriano led a very quiet life in Champfèr. origins that failed to take into account “the After obtaining permits from the Swiss needs of the economy and not even a logical authorities, he visited Zurich, Lugano, Basel, administrative division”, the Communities Berne, Lausanne and, especially, Geneva, he proposed were conceived on a rational meeting friends and new acquaintances. In basis, taking into account both their history Geneva he met several of his young collabo- and geography and their economic and polit- rators at the Nuove Edizioni Ivrea publish- ical facets. More specifically, the representa- ing house: Luciano Foà, who would later tion of interests and democratic representa- help set up the Adelphi publishing house in tion could be combined by ensuring that the
the 1960s, and Giorgio Fuà, destined to economic district coincided with the admin- become one of the greatest Italian econo- istrative area and with that of the single- mists in the second half of the twentieth cen- member constituency that would elect the tury. His exile forced Adriano to compare his president of the Community and thus the own convictions – and the convictions of future Member of Parliament. The local many others – with those held by the feder- “Community” body should have “the aver- alists Ernesto Rossi, Egidio Reale, Luigi age size of a canton”, yet also and especially Einaudi and Altiero Spinelli, as well as the coinciding with the traditional Italian units beliefs of socialists such as Ignazio Silone, such as the diocese, the constituency, the Guglielmo Usellini, Alessandro Levi, area or the district6. The vitality and effi- Edgardo Lami Starnuti and Ugo Guido ciency exemplified by the Swiss cantons From left to right: Mondolfo. His main goal was to create a kind were a guarantee for the future of the Schumpeter, of institutional system that embraced both Communities in Italy, which should be built Capitalismo, 5 socialismo e federalism and socialism . upon “analogous administrative princi- democrazia, The idea of Community – a kind of small ples”7. The confederate Communities would 1955. province – was later explained by Olivetti in then give rise to regions, established accord- L. Mumford, Italy by reflecting on the conditions found in ing to identical criteria: demographic size, La condizione dell’uomo, the Canavese area and on other foreign history, geographical borders, local econom- 1957. political experiences. He mainly focused on ic resources and administrative efficiency. Kierkegaard, federal states and those distinguished by These confederate regions would then form Scuola di cristianesimo, 1960. local bodies with political autonomy. the federal Italian State8.
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Adriano Olivetti ...... Luigi Einaudi was contrary to the idea of a their ideas became topical again, although grand plan – whether political or economic – they were ultimately ignored10. and saw Adriano’s Community as the most In the winter of 1944/1945 Adriano wanted appropriate administrative solution for the Nuove Edizioni di Capolago publishing many of the problems in Italian politics at house (set up in 1936 by Gina Ferrero the time. Einaudi often freely and violently Lombroso, Egidio Reale and Ignazio disagreed with Olivetti on certain issues, but Silone11) to publish his final views in a thanks to his critical support Olivetti tem- Memorandum sullo Stato Federale delle pered some of the cooperative aspects of his Comunità (Memorandum on the Federal original project, though it still represented a State of Communities) under a pseudonym. dynamic and intrinsically democratic form However this was not to be, as they could of corporatism. Both were convinced, how- not agree on terms and Adriano kept making ever, that the pride in belonging to a political changes to his work. It would only later be body based on local areas, or functioning on published at the author’s own expense12. the basis of precise characteristics and with- From what we can deduce from his corre- in a restricted group of people, was certain spondence with Odoardo Masini, Gugliemo to feed that sense of individual responsibili- Usellini, Paola Carrara Lombroso and Egidio ty which had been weakened or destroyed Reale, there must have been some disagree- by mass political parties and totalitarian ment between Adriano and the Ferrero regimes9. brothers (he had promised them he would
In November 1944, Einaudi and Olivetti’s dis- buy out their publishing business in 1943).13 cussions seemed capable of becoming part Perhaps it was for this reason that one of the of current political affairs in North Italy. At very first books to be published by Edizioni the same time that he wrote his famous open di Comunità immediately after the war was letter to all members of the National Guglielmo Ferrero’s Potere (Power) with an Liberation Committee (Lettera aperta del introduction by Umberto Campagnolo. Partito d’Azione a tutti i partiti aderenti al Just as Adriano’s work seemed about to be Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale), Altiero published, Ernesto Rossi decided to express Spinelli in Milan asked both of them – on his reserves. Rather than returning the behalf of the executive of the Partito proofs to Adriano with his comments in the d’Azione political party in the North of Italy margin, he wrote him two letters that now – to provide a programme for the recon- provide us with a rare testimony of a man’s struction of the Italian State. The pro- trust in and intellectual respect for another. From left to right: gramme should develop the autonomy theo- In his usual frank manner, the economist N. Berdiaev, ry put forward by Einaudi in his Via il prefet- criticises the work saying, among other Spirito e libertà, 1947. to! article, which referred to the idea of things, that “the book is still too tiresome to “Community”. Their individual replies were read” and “only a very few people would Barsotti, La fuga immobile, not acted upon, due to intervening develop- actually plough through it, even if many 1957. ments in Italian politics, and it was only after might well say it is ‘interesting’, without ever L. Beveridge, the Second World War, during meetings of having read it”. In other words, he foresees L’azione volontaria, 1954. the Committee on the Constitution, that what would be confirmed by later events.
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A builder of the future ...... Rossi also perceives an issue that would (now the SOS) in Lugano on several occa- justify the label of “utopian” used to sions from March 194418 onwards, dealing describe Adriano’s political philosophy especially with Ferdinando Santi and from the post-war years to the present day: Guglielmo Canevascini19. In May 1944, he “What you write about Christian morals, wrote in a letter to Santi that all his fami- i.e. that this should influence all the activi- ly, following an announced “worsening of ties of the administrative organs, will be racial laws”, quickly decided that they seen by the common reader as being too should cross the border to Switzerland, in naive”. He adds that “our moral motives in particular, his sister Elena, wife of the taking action do not change, or change only recently expatriated Arrigo, and their chil- a little, owing to the fact that the political dren Vittorio, Luisa and Camillo20. administrative order has changed”. And he Adriano managed to direct, at least partial- concludes by saying: “to state that the ly, the antifascist resistance movement in organisation of the Communities would be the Iv rea factory from his place of exile in soulless without a full moral revolution Champfèr. On several occasions he gave the where a spirit of charity pervades social Comitato Svizzero di Soccorso Operaio justice seems to me to diminish the value of guarantees about the antifascist sentiments your proposals, as many people believe of the young men about to flee Italy in order that such a revolution will never take to facilitate their welcome in Switzerland21. place”14. In exchange for the attention paid by the
However it was too late to alter the work. Comitato to him and his relatives, he sent it The Memorandum sullo Stato Federale delle money to help finance its efforts in Comunità was ready for publication, with September of that year to bring relief (food the title L’ordine politico delle Comunità and basic goods) to Italian children in the (The Political Order of Communities). It recently liberated areas of Italy, especially was, according to the author, “a personal in the Val d’Ossola22. The sentiments of the work and not a political party’s creed”15. It managers of the Comitato Svizzero di was the pondered conclusion of a period Soccorso Operaio, even before this, can per- spent in political exile16. haps be best summed up in Ferdinando In actual fact, Adriano had been consid- Santi’s words in a letter to Adriano in July ered an “Arian” by the Fascist authorities. 1944: “I wanted to beg you not to speak of All the other members of his family were, any special courtesy paid to you and yours.
From left to right: on the other hand, held to be Jews by the In reality, what little we did was more than
Kierkegaard, Fascist regime, apart from his sister Elena right and proper in view of your many wel- Timore e tremore, and, of course, his mother17. For this rea- come acts of charity. I personally have no 1948. son, Adriano did all he could to make it especial merit in this; it was the Comitato S. Weil, possible for both his former wife Paola that helped you, as it has many other less La condizione operaia, 1952. Levi and their children and his brother deserving people”23.
E. Mounier, Massimo and his respective family to enter After the publication of his L’ordine politico Rivoluzione persona- Switzerland. He even contacted the delle Comunità, Adriano felt that the time lista e comunitaria, 1949. Comitato Svizzero di Soccorso Operaio was right to dedicate his energies to politics
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Adriano Olivetti ......
Portrait of Adriano “of a direct nature”. He therefore confided 1 See D. CADEDDU, Adriano Olivetti politico, Olivetti. in Guglielmo Usellini that “in the current Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome, 2009. political climate, in the imminent struggle”, the only “logical and coherent conclusion” 2 For details of Adriano’s intelligence was to ask to “join the socialist party, as this activities, see D. CADEDDU, Introduction, in is the only one that, on account of the spiri- A. OLIVETTI, Stato Federale delle Comunità. tual orientation of its best men and its prac- La riforma politica e sociale negli scritti tical attitude”, best coincided with his aspira- inediti (1942-1945), critical edition by D. tions of “a spiritual and organisational CADEDDU, FrancoAngeli, Milan, 2004; and renewal of the socialist movements”24. One M. BERETTINI, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifas- month after joining the European Federalist cismo italiano. Diplomazia clandestina, Movement, thanks to Ernesto Rossi’s inter- Intelligence, Operazioni speciali (1940-1943), vention25 and while still in Switzerland, preface by M. de Leonardis, Le Lettere, Adriano also joined the Italian Socialist Florence, 2010, pages 122-129. Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP), but his own political ideas, matured during the tur- 3 E. AGA ROSSI, Una nazione allo sbando. moil of war, would soon lead him to found and L’armistizio italiano del settembre 1943 e le sue head an autonomous political party upon his conseguenze, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2003, pages return to Italy: the Community Movement26. 59-60. The social organisation that Adriano had studied and experienced for himself in 4 See the views expressed in La riforma Switzerland formed, for him, a practical politica e sociale di Adriano Olivetti (1942- example of many of his ideas for reform, 1945), edited by D. CADEDDU, Fondazione which he strove to introduce in the 1950s. Adriano Olivetti, Rome, 2005. His sudden death is, therefore, as in any legend, something that may sum up the 5 With regard to antifascist emigration, see whole of his existence. Forever forward- A. GAROSCI, Storia dei fuorusciti, Laterza, looking and engaged in expressing his ideas Bari, 1953; E. SIGNORI, La Svizzera e i fuorus- and the search for paradigmatic experi- citi italiani. Aspetti e problemi dell’emigrazione ences27, Adriano Olivetti died in February politica 1943-1945, preface by G. Spadolini, 1960 on a train to Lausanne, in the land FrancoAngeli, Milan, 1983; R. BROGGINI, that had guaranteed him – as it has so Terra d’asilo. I rifugiati italiani in Svizzera. many other great spirits – the opportunity 1943-1945, il Mulino, Bologna, 1993; IDEM, La of freedom of expression during those diffi- frontiera della speranza. Gli ebrei dall’Italia cult war-torn years. verso la Svizzera 1943-1945, Mondadori, Milan, 1998.
6 A. OLIVETTI, L’ordine politico delle Comunità, V, 3 (c).
7 Ibid., II, 1.
8 See D. CADEDDU, Il valore della politica in Adriano Olivetti, Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, Rome, 2007, for details of Adriano’s political philosophy.
* Davide Cadeddu, Researcher on the 9 Cf. D. CADEDDU, Del liberalismo di Luigi history of political doctrines at Milan Einaudi. Tre esercizi di lettura, Cuem, Milan, University and director of the Société 2007, pages 65-94. Européenne de Culture. Editor at ISAP (Institute of Public Administration Sciences) 10 Cf. ibidem. and co-ordinator for “Comprendre. Revue de politique de la culture”. 11 See R. CASTAGNOLA ROSSINI, Incontri di
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A builder of the future ...... spiriti liberi. Amicizie, relazioni professionali e 1965, Fondazione Pellegrini-Canevascini – iniziative editoriali di Silone in Svizzera, Fondazione Miranda e Guglielmo Canevascini, Lacaita, Manduria-Bari-Rome, 2004. s.l. [Lugano] 2001 for a general outline.
12 Cf. the copy of Adriano’s letter to Odoardo 20 Cf. Adriano’s letter to Santi dated 25 May Masini, Champfèr dated 13 December 1944, 1944, in CADEDDU, Adriano Olivetti e la in the Archivio del Centro interdipartimen- Svizzera, cit., pages 231-232. tale di ricerca e documentazione sulla storia del ’900, Pavia University, the Guglielmo 21 Cf. Adriano’s letter to the Comitato Usellini collection, Fal. G, doc. 111 (another Svizzero di Soccorso Operaio dated 22 April copy is held in the Central State Archives in 1944, in CADEDDU, Adriano Olivetti e la Rome, in the Egidio Reale collection, b. 4, Svizzera, cit., page 230. dossier “118 Adriano Olivetti”). 22 Cf. the letters to Olivetti dated 26 13 Cf. CASTAGNOLA ROSSINI, Incontri di spiriti September and 13 October [194]4, and liberi, cit., page 115, and Adriano’s letter to Adriano’s letter to the Comitato Svizzero di Reale dated 16 February 1945, in the Central Soccorso Operaio dated 4 October 1944, in State Archives in Rome, in the Egidio Reale CADEDDU, Adriano Olivetti e la Svizzera, cit., collection b. 4, dossier “118 Adriano Olivetti”. pages 236-238.
14 Letter from Rossi to Adriano, dated 31 23 Letter from Santi to Adriano dated 1 July March 1945, in the Historical Archives of the 1944, in CADEDDU, Adriano Olivetti e la European Union, Florence, the Ernesto Rossi Svizzera, cit., page 233. collection, vol. 22, dossier “Adriano Olivetti”. 24 Adriano’s letter to Usellini dated 23 March 15 Letter from Adriano to Rossi, dated 9 1945, in the Archivio del Centro interdiparti- April 1945, in the Historical Archives of the mentale di ricerca e documentazione sulla European Union, Florence, the Ernesto Rossi storia del ’900, Pavia University, Guglielmo collection, vol. 22, dossier “Adriano Olivetti”. Usellini collection, Fal. B, dossier 1, doc. 4.
16 Cf. the “Questionaire” of the Police 25 Cf. Adriano’s letter to Rossi dated 5 March Division of the Federal Department of 1945, in the Historical Archives of the Justice and Police, page 11, in the Swiss European Union, Florence, Ernesto Rossi col- Federal Archives, Berne, E 4264 1985/196, lection, vol. 22, dossier “Adriano Olivetti”. vol. 1763, dossier “N 20629 Olivetti Adriano 11.4.01 Italien”. 26 See A. OLIVETTI, Fini e fine della politica. Democracy without political parties. Con un 17 Cf. V. OCHETTO, Adriano Olivetti, discorso inedito, introduction by D. Cadeddu, Mondadori, Milan, 1985, page 103. Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, 2009.
18 Cf. Adriano’s letter to Santi dated 12 27 For a brief biography of Adriano Olivetti, March 1944, in D. CADEDDU, Adriano Olivetti see D. CADEDDU, “Humana civilitas”. Profilo e la Svizzera (January 1943 – September 1945), intellettuale di Adriano Olivetti, in G. SAPELLI in Spiriti liberi in Svizzera. La presenza di fuor- – D. CADEDDU, Adriano Olivetti. Lo Spirito nel- usciti italiani nella Confederazione negli anni l’impresa, Il Margine, Trento, 2007. del fascismo e del nazismo (1922-1945). Atti del convegno internazionale di studi. Ascona, Centro Monte Verità, Milan University, 8-9 November 2004, by R. Castagnola, F. Panzera and M. Spiga, Franco Cesati, Florence, 2006, page 227.
19 See N. VALSANGIACOMO COMOLLI, Storia di un leader. Vita di Guglielmo Canevascini 1886-
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A builder of the future ...... The Fondazione Adriano Olivetti
by Laura Olivetti*
“Non solum in memoriam, sed in intentionem”.
Left: Adriano Olivetti with his daughter Laura, 1955.
On this page: Interior of the head office of the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti in Rome.
Adriano Olivetti ......
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A builder of the future ...... The unexpected death of Adriano Olivetti and supports studies and research projects in early 1960 left not only his family bereft falling within its area of competence, of a dear person, but also an entire commu- encourages and coordinates conferences nity and a complex cultural, soci al and and workshops, organises and stages exhi- political programme bereft of its driving bitions in collaboration with other philan- force. Immediately after his death, his fam- thropic institutions or with public and pri- ily, friends and closest colleagues decided vate bodies in Italy and overseas. to set up a foundation that would guarantee continuity for his envisaged reforms and One of the main prerogatives of the the future of Adriano Olivetti’s life work, Foundation is the promotion of academic albeit in a different manner. and scientific research, especia lly studies Thus it was that the Fondazione Adriano dealing with Adriano Olivetti’s entrepre- Olivetti was set up in 1962 with the aim of neurial, cultural and political activities, as keeping and defending his memory and of one would only expect. The seat in Rome continuing and developing the civil, social and that in Ivrea (opened in 2008 and and political commitment that distin- housed in Adriano Olivetti’s last home) con- guished his work, as well as promoting and tain thousands of documents in a large encouraging studies aimed at a greater archive (on paper and multimedia) and an knowledge and understanding of the condi- extensive library with more than 10,000 tions for social progress, as we read in the volumes, both of which were declared to be first articles of the Foundation’s statutes. of significant historical interest by the In line with this mandate, the Foundation is Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and engaged in cultural and scientific research Activities (MiBAC). The archive is split and promotion in four main areas of inter- into various collections and contains, est: institutions and society; economics and among other things, the business and pri- society; community and society; art, archi- vate correspondence of Camillo Olivetti tecture and urban design. and Adriano (extensive) and that of the other family members; the archive of the Right from the very start, the Foundation Community Movement and the Edizioni di has always directed its efforts to ensure Comunità (the political movement and pub- that its complex cultural heritage of great lishing house founded by Adriano Olivetti civil and scientific value is used as a cre- in the years 1946 – 1947); the personal ative tool in interpreting the challenges fac- archives of Ludovico Quaroni and Georges ing modern society and not as a mere com- Friedrich Friedmann; as well as the archive me morative instrument. that bears witness to the Foundation’s own The Foundation has tirelessly pursued this activities over the past fifty years. The goal with all the rigour and reforming pas- Rome seat contains the personal libraries sion of the Olivetti experience, paying spe- of both Camillo and Adriano Olivetti, of cial attention to the most dynamic indepen- great cultural importance in terms of both dent experiments in world culture today. the quality of the publications and their We have always preferred that Adriano wide-ranging s cientific and cultural inter- Olivetti’s activism should inspire initiatives est; the complete collection of the Edizioni capable of celebrating the man and his di Comunità works and the “Comunità” work, the most significant aspects of which review; the complete collection of all the are reformulated to suit the modern con- Foundation’s publications from 1962 to the text. This best fits the reforming nature of present day and the Quaderni della the Community project. We are thus dedi- Fondazione (Foundation Notebooks). The cated – whether by vocation or statutory Foundation Library also contains copies of
Left: mandate – to interpreting the memory of all the publications and academic works Adriano Olivetti at an this man and his achievements within mod- dealing with Adriano Olivetti and the histo- election event at the ern society in Italy and elsewhere, as we ry of the O livetti firm, making this a unique Teatro Adriano in Rome on 27 March 1958 in are convinced the world can still benefit study centre. the run-up to the from his culture, resources and capabilities The Foundation has its own editorial staff parliamentary elections held in May 1958. today. As a result, the Foundation organ ises that publishes – through Edizioni di
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Adriano Olivetti ......
Adriano Olivetti Comunità – its series called Quaderni della reading, before a Fondazione (Foundation Notebooks) as well-stocked bookcase at his home in the city well as other works in collaboration with section of Ivrea Villa other publishers. In 2008 the Foundation Belliboschi. (Publifoto) started the Collana Intangibili (Intangible Collection) project: a digital editorial pro- ject. The Foundation was one of the first mem- bers of the European Foundation Center and over the course of its fifty-year history – making it one of the oldest institutes of its kind in Italy – it has promoted and worked on research projects and study campaigns in collaboration with other major European and American foundat ions. Always follow- ing the tradition of collaboration and iden- tity that made Adriano Olivetti’s life work such a symbol of authentic rigorous com- mitment to the promotion of philanthropy, not just in Italy, but also overseas.
* Laura Olivetti, President of the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti
Fondazione Adriano Olivetti Via Giuseppe Zanardelli, 34 – 00186 Rome Tel. +39 06 683 40 16 www.fondazioneadrianolivetti.it
Club Amici della Fondazione Adriano Olivetti [email protected]
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A builder of the future ......
Exterior view of the head office of the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti in Ivrea.
Photo sources and information on Acknowledgements the quotations in the financial section We want to thank the Fondazione Adriano and on the cover Olivetti in Rome and t he Associazione Archivio The quotations accompanying the thematic pic- Storico Olivetti of Ivrea for the valuable assi- tures in this year’s Annual Report were selected stance they provided and documentation they by Myriam Facchinetti. They were taken from made available.
ADRIANO OLIVETTI, Città dell’Uomo, Edizioni di Comunità 1960. Notes These texts solely express the opinions of the Associazione Archivio Storico Olivetti, Ivrea: authors; Banca Popolare di Sondrio (SUISSE) all miniatures of the advertising posters with the accepts no liability of any kind. quotations and thematic pictures on pages 4 - 5, 8, 13 and 14. Banca Popolare di Sondrio (SUISSE) hereby declares that it is prepared to honour its legal obli- Giovanni Berengo Gardin: pages 20, 28 and 36. gations towards the holders of rights to pictures used herein, the owners of which could not be Sources of photographs in cultural section located or identified. Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, Rome: pages IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XIV, XVI, XVIIIII, XXIII, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL, XLII, XLIII, XLVII.
Associazione Archivio Storico Olivetti, Ivrea: pages I, II, V, XII, XIII, XV, XVII, XVIIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XLIV, XLVI.
Sergio Libis: page XXII.
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Adriano Olivetti ......
DEVELOPMENT Myriam Facchinetti
TEXT EDITING Andrea Paganini Lecturer, authors, director of “L’ora d’oro” publishers
GRAFIC DESIGN Petra Häfliger Lucasdesign, Giubiasco
TRANSLATION Punto e Virgola Zurich
On the reverse of cover: Advertising poster for the M20 typewriter, designed in 1923 by Pirovano.