The Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute of Bucharest have organised the exhibition “Universo Olivetti. Comunità come utopia concreta” (Olivetti Universe. Community as a Concrete Utopia), which will be inaugurated in the National Library of Romania on 4 February. The exhibition – which has been curated by Pippo Ciorra, Francesca Limana and Matilde Trevisani – recounts the great themes and culture underlying Olivetti’s enterprise, bringing to light all its ethical depth and great topicality through objects and archive materials such as graphic works, documents, reproductions and photographic reinterpretations.
The exhibition is divided into four thematic areas (Factory, Culture and Image, City and Politics, Society) and retraces the history of an Italian company that has become an expression of Made in Italy at its best. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, Adriano Olivetti was indeed able to combine industrial and technical modernisation with an innovative reorganisation of the local territory and social space. Ivrea and the Canavese area thus became a laboratory in which to integrate culture, technological research, design, architecture and sustainability within a unique and innovative relationship model between business and society – one that is still considered exemplary today.
Realised by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in collaboration with Fondazione MAXXI and Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, the exhibition has toured several Italian Cultural Institutes around the world.
