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| Stabilimenti Olivetti I.C.O Copertura cortile Nuova I.C.O.1958
Architetto Eduardo Vittoria
Courtesy Francesco Mattuzzi e Fondazione Adriano Olivetti
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(Venice, Italy) The Italian Pavilion, curated by Luca Zevi, has announced its vision for the 13th Venice International Architecture Exhibition. Riffing on The Four Seasons, the project imagines an encounter between Architecture and Business to kick-start Italy out of the economic crisis.
The First Season - Nostalgia for the Future - starts with the visionary entrepreneur, Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960), son of the founder of Olivetti, Camillo Olivetti. Adriano Olivetti transformed the Italian workplace. Those who were fortunate enough to use an Olivetti typewriter will remember how beautifully designed they were; in fact, many Olivetti products are in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Olivetti believed that people who respected each other and the environment could avoid war and poverty. He shared the wealth, cutting his employee's hours while increasing their salaries and fringe benefits, and hired innovative architects to turn his industrial complexes into works of art.
The Second Season - Assault on the Land - moves to the 1980s when, after the exit of major businesses from Italy, projects were swiftly developed in a kind of desperate frenzy that gave no consideration to architectural design or how they fit into the existing environment.
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| 1950 Olivetti Lettera 22 |
The Second Season - Assault on the Land - moves to the 1980s when, after the exit of major businesses from Italy, projects were swiftly developed in a kind of desperate frenzy that gave no consideration to architectural design or how they fit into the existing environment.
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Teuco-Guzz
industrial
1996 fontana ph
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The Third Season - architecture for the ‘Made in Italy’ system - Following Olivetti's path, for the past fifteen years, some "Made in Italy" companies have focused on creating first-class architectural designs that incorporate business, people and the land into an aesthetic environment.
The Fourth Season - reMade in Italy - From May 1 to October 31, 2015, Milan will host the World Expo "Nourish the Planet, Energy for Life." With this in mind, the Italian Pavilion will be a place where designers, businessmen and politicians take a serious look at how to blend nourishment, movement and living into the same equation.
Here's the press release, slightly edited:
The
Italian Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition la
Biennale di Venezia
THE FOUR SEASONS
Architecture for the ‘Made in
Italy’ system
from Adriano Olivetti to the Green Economy
curated by Luca Zevi
Venice, Tese delle Vergini at the Arsenale
from 29 August to 25 November 2012
This
year is not like others. The Italian Pavilion must place itself at the
centre and reflect on the
relationship between the economic crisis, architecture and the land. It must be a
space where a project for our country’s growth can be imagined. The
‘common ground’ must be translated into a solid, visionary project in
which culture and economy enter into a new agreement.
--- Luca Zevi, curator of the Italian
Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition.
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Archimede Solar Energy Sed
direzional
ph. Paolo Ficola
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| Stabilimen |
1st season: Adriano Olivetti - nostalgia for the future
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Adriano Olivetti vince il Compasso d'Oro per
la Lettera 22 di Marcello Nizzoli 19
Per gentile concessione della Fondazione Adriano Olivetti |
2nd season: the assault on the land
Starting
from the 1980s, with the widespread entrepreneurial fervour following
the loss of major industries from Italy, there was a kind of ‘assault’
on the land by projects that were very vigorous in terms of production,
but wholly disinterested in any form of architectural expression or
appropriate insertion in the landscape. This was the period of
production ‘in the stair cupboard or warehouse, often dressed up with a
house in Swiss chalet style’, the zero point of architecture for the
‘Made in Italy’ system.
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| Ilti Luce Centr |
In
the last 15 years some ‘Made in Italy’ companies - marked by an
‘Olivetti typology’ in dimension and specialised production - have
decided to build their factories and head offices to first
class architectural designs. The result is buildings that pay heed to
the poetics of the places and the objects, to the lives of people and to
environmental sensitivity, documented - and ‘narrated’ - in the
exhibition. Doing ‘virtuous’ business also in imagining the production
places and marketing is helping to create new landscapes. The exhibition
is transformed into a pathway of discovery, knowledge and reflection on
architectural and planning works for the ‘Made in Italy’ system. The
sense of the perspective lies in their action: industry that asks
architecture for the outline of the places, the everyday, its own
identity.
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| iGuzzini L
ph. archivio Iguzzini illuminazi
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The challenge of the ‘fourth season’ - the systemisation of ‘Made in Italy’ companies in the direction of a Green Economy - is fated to meet the challenge of Expo 2015 ‘Nourish the Planet’, which will be an extraordinary opportunity for reflecting on the relationship between land and environment, city and agricultural production, and the sense of ‘design’ in the north and south of the world. Nutrition, which will be the hub of Expo 2015, prompts further analysis of the sustainable community concept: the relationship between city and countryside, industrialisation and agricultural production. The Italian Pavilion thus becomes a place where designers, businessmen and politicians begin to seriously look at the questions of living, in anticipation of an era when the obsession with the megalopolis must leave room for new rules inspired by the community, in which nourishment, moving and living become functions of the same equation. Some recent Italian experiments that move in this direction will be illustrated: upgrading towns by inserting new-generation production activities; rethinking of public spaces aimed at a city on a child’s dimension, which become the parameter of the quality of life in urban spaces, in an attempt to rethink the city as an eminently public place.
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| Sal.pi Uno Sede produttiva
in corso di completame
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A sustainable Italian Pavilion
The
Italian Pavilion does not restrict itself to asserting a new way of
living, but tries to offer a kind of prototype of a different type of
housing, which keeps together the culture of the environment and the
Green Economy. The Pavilion will thus be turned into an energetically
self-sufficient and environmentally welcoming place. Multimedia tools
and innovative technology will allow the visitor to interact with the
story, to ask questions, to virtually meet the main characters in the
story being told. Interaction with animated elements - holograms,
virtual people and videos - will mark every stage of the narrative.
Conversations, interviews and performances will occupy the space every
day.
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat
Olivetti believed that people who respected each other and the environment could avoid war and poverty. He shared the wealth, cutting his employee's hours while increasing their salaries and fringe benefits, and hired innovative architects to turn his industrial complexes into works of art.
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