L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano T his year, San Fran- cisco Design Week brought us Olivetti- World, "The Global Legacy of an Italian Maker." Design Week is the largest design festival on the West Coast and Italy was there highlighting the key values of the Italian company's experience - an experience that is cultural, social, political, and entrepre- neurial. Silicon Valley may currently be the center of innovative busi- ness culture, but the model for business innovation may actual- ly date back to Italy when Adri- a n o O l i v e t t i t o o k o v e r h i s father's typewriter business in the 1930s. The story of Olivetti connects the history of modern computers with what we can describe today as the first desk- top machine. A major component of the OlivettiWorld series of events took place on June 9 at the Ital- ian Cultural Institute. This was the opening day of the photo- graphic exhibition "Industry-life and Architecture," curated by Valentina Anania. Beniamino de' Liguori, secretary general of the Olivetti Foundation, made a lecture presentation and intro- d u c e d t h e w o r k o f C e c i l e D e a g l i o w h o h a s t r a n s l a t e d Olivetti letters from America: Letters from the New World: Camillo and Adriano Olivetti in America. I n a t t e n d a n c e w a s C o n s u l General Ortona who thanked Cecile and the Foundation by saying, "Your work has been a huge gift that you are giving to this country." Ortona acknowl- edged, "The unique legacy of OlivettiWorld embraces differ- ent sectors of life from the com- pany that produced the revolu- t i o n w e k n o w t o d a y a s t e c h n o l o g y a n d , o n a n o t h e r level, a company that has been very important from a social view." Olivetti was a pioneer not only in design, innovation and architecture, but in the concept of social responsibly to employ- ees and the community. Camillo a n d A d r i a n o c o n s i d e r e d t h i s r e s p o n s i b i l i t y o f p a r a m o u n t importance. As such, they intro- duced many ground breaking programs including the nine- month maternity leave saying, "We express out solidarity so no worker that is also a mother will look with envy and pain at those mothers to have the luck and the right to enjoy the first months of CATHERINE ACCARDI OlivettiWorld visits the San Francisco Bay Area i n n o v a t i v e m o d e l s t h a t a r e nowadays still studied and pur- sued by businesses worldwide. Through the voices of those who are today committed, in different capacities, to shaping the future of our society, the series will try to stimulate a d e b a t e o n t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p s between innovation, architec- ture, design, production and communication in the 20th cen- tury and beyond." OlivettiWorld is a project of the Italian Cultural Institute of S a n F r a n c i s c o a n d t h e F o n - d a z i o n e A d r i a n o O l i v e t t i o f Rome, in association with the Consulate General of Italy in San Francisco, Fuseproject, and San Francisco Design Week. their baby's lives unfold." I n 1 9 3 2 , w h e n C a m i l l o turned the company over to his son, Adriano, he told him, "You can grow but never fire anyone. Unintentional unemployment is t h e w o r s t d i s g r a c e t h a n c a n befall a human being." Quotes like these give us insight into the mind of a great innovator. Alongside such pioneering efforts in the area of social con- s c i o u s n e s s , O l i v e t t i d i d n o t l e a v e b e h i n d t e c h n o l o g y , d e s i g n i n g t h e f i r s t p e r s o n a l computer which was used for the 1969 moon landing. For decades, in the world of Olivetti, every aspect of design was given careful consideration, "from the shape of a space bar t o t h e c o l o r s c h e m e f o r a n advertising poster." In 1952, New York's renowned Museum of Modern Art held an exhibi- tion titled Olivetti: Design in Industry and today many of the exhibit's items have become part of the museum's permanent collection. T h e O l i v e t t i d e s i g n t e a m i n c l u d e d m a n y o f t h e m o s t remarkable names in the busi- n e s s . F r o m t h e 1 9 4 0 s t o t h e 1960s, Olivetti industrial design was led by Marcello Nizzoli, responsible for the Lexicon 80 (1948) and the portable Lettera 22 (1950). Later, Mario Bellini and Ettore Sottsass directed design. Bellini designed the Programma 101 (1965), Divi- summa 18 (1973) and Logos 68 (1973) calculators and the TCV- 2 5 0 v i d e o d i s p l a y t e r m i n a l (1966). To put the Olivetti experi- ence in perspective, we should keep in mind that the Olivetti typewriter company was found- ed by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, Italy. The firm was mainly devel- o p e d b y h i s s o n , A d r i a n o Olivetti. The firm opened its first overseas manufacturing plant in 1930, launching the Divisumma electric calculator i n 1 9 4 8 . O l i v e t t i p r o d u c e d Italy's first electronic computer, Elea 9003, in 1959, the same year they purchased the Under- wood Typewriter Company. In 1964 the electronic division was sold to the American General Electric Company but continued to develop new computing prod- ucts of its own, including the Programma 101, one of the first commercially-produced person- al computers. T h e c i t y w h e r e O l i v e t t i began, Ivrea, is on the verge of becoming a UNESCO world heritage site, the first in Italy for twentieth-century industrial her- itage, and is referred to as Ivrea, Industrial City of the Twentieth C e n t u r y , c o m m i s s i o n e d a n d built by Adriano Olivetti. The overall OlivettiWorld experience has been described in this way: "Olivetti was also at the avant-garde in the field of architecture and company man- agement, implementing such Olivetti Valentine typewriter. Photographs by Catherine Accardi Olivetti Family. Courtesy of the Olivetti Foundation SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY

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