Courtesy Associazione Archivio Storico Olivetti 
event
Friday 17 January 2020 ore 18:00 - 20:00

Lezioni Olivettiane®. Adriano Olivetti’s designers.Interior Design with Enrico Morteo

MAXXI Auditorium – € 5 
carnet for three meetings € 10
10 individual seats free and reserved for myMAXXi cardholders by writing to mymaxxi@fondazionemaxxi.it, by the day before the event

Three meetings dedicated to advertising graphics, interior design, product design, and all creatives who have made the image of the Ivrea factory famous throughout the world.

The third cycle of the project created in collaboration with the Adriano Olivetti Foundation comes to the MAXXI. In the panorama of Italian and world industry, Adriano’s Olivetti has become the emblem of Made in Italy, and stands out for its corporate style based on technological excellence, innovation, quality, and design, respect for the market but also its strong commitment to art and culture, to sensitivity towards social problems and the constant improvement of the relationship with employees and the territory, in an extraordinary balance between design, society, and technology.


Interior design
with Enrico Morteo

Olivetti’s design is both an ethical and aesthetic experience that permeates the Ivrea factory and affirms the presence and image of the company throughout the world. The quality of the products, visual communication, and organisation of the spaces are an innovative logic of the company as formal, functional, and technological research. Special attention is given to the care and experimentation of interior design from the office furniture, which is witness to the evolution of work, to the setting up of the showrooms in any part of the world, which are transformed into real works of art.

Inspired by his travel in America in the early 1930s, Adriano Olivetti entrusted the project to create a horizontal modern filing cabinet to Aldo Magnelli. This object was initially designed to be used within the company, and the Synthesis filing cabinet was successful on the market so much so that it was produced in series in the Massa factory, the same which would later host the production of the famous and iconic Synthesis Sistema 45 designed by Ettore Sottsass. At the same time, in the shops and showrooms throughout the world, the dialogue among the most important architects and artists of the time imprinted and personalised the avant-grade of the “Olivetti style”.

Introduction
Margherita Guccione MAXXI Architettura Director
Beniamino de’ Liguori Carino General Secretary of the Adriano Olivetti Foundation

Speaker
Enrico Morteo architect and design historian and critic

Enrico Morteo is an architect and design historian and critic. Since 2010 he has been the curator of the Golden Compass Historic Collection. Curator of the Olivetti. A beautiful company exhibit, Turin, 2008 (with M. De Giorgi), he has also collaborated with leading Italian magazines (Domus, Interni, Abitare, Modo) and taught Design Theories and History at the IIUAV.