Olivetti. Stories from a collection

The ninetieth year of "Stile Olivetti" is celebrated with an exhibition that brings together over five hundred objects coming from the fields of communication, graphics and advertising, which are described in the volume "Olivetti. Stories from a collection”. Published by Ronzani Editore with the patronage of the Olivetti Historical Archive Association and Tipoteca Italiana, the book was edited by Sergio Polano - recently died architectural historian - and by Alessandro Santero - antiquarian bookseller and collector - with the artistic direction of Giorgio Cedolin.


© Olivetti

The exhibition, which will be at Palazzo Arese Borromeo from 13 April to 2 June, will have an installation curated by M•IA Studio by Cristina Barbiani and Elisabetta Facchinetti, and will display some of the materials carefully collected and described in the over 300 pages of the text: projects, drawings, brochures, posters, company books, instruction booklets and catalogs belonging to this important private collection.


© Palazzo Arese Borromeo

Here you can discover some unique materials: the book 25 years of Olivetti from 1933, with the cover by Bruno Munari; the file that analyzes the urban planning issues related to the workers' housing; very rare brochure History of Writing where the poet Leonardo Sinisgalli comments: «a typewritten page is a page written by a mythological hand that has 45 fingers»; the volume in which Elio Vittorini talks about 'advertising humanism' (1939; the portraits of the workers complete with direct testimonies in Olivetti of Ivrea. Visit to a factory (with graphics by Albe Steiner); the Little spelling guide entrusted to the then president of the Accademia della Crusca.

The photos taken by Mulas, Ballo, Zanuso, Roiter for the volume Olivetti 1908 – 1958 stand out. A Letter to the student also appears, an advertising brochure offering the purchase in installments of a Lettera 22 with, as a gift, books or magazine subscriptions . Also from 1958 is the product catalog with a preface signed by Richard Neutra who, as compensation, did not ask for money but, surprisingly, for a Letter 22.

The child, the game, the toy, the Kinetic Art catalog also appear. Programmed art in which Umberto Eco, in 1962, theorized kinetic art as an 'open work'; up to the first of the Olivetti diaries with graphic design by Enzo Mari and drawings by Jean-Michel Folon. And the book Offices. From the traditional office to the open-plan office of 1974 edited by Ettore Sottsass. Obviously there is no shortage of the first original edition of the City of Man, a spiritual testament of the entrepreneur from Ivrea.


© Olivetti - Velocissime

«We must do things well and make it known»: Olivetti maintained. The book and the Olivetti exhibition. Stories from a collection have the merit of letting today's public know how many things the Olivetti factory has managed to do so well in the fields of communication, graphics and advertising, topics that have so far been little investigated by Olivettian analysis.