88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Utopia, Abandoned
The Italian town Ivrea was once a model for workers’ rights and progressive design. Now, it’s both a cautionary tale and evidence of a grand experiment in making labor humane.
IN THE 1950S, the small town of Ivrea, which is about an hour’s train ride north of Turin, became the site of an unheralded experiment in living and working. Olivetti, a renowned designer and manufacturer of typewriters and accounting machines, decided to provide for its employees through retirement. They were given the opportunity to take classes at an on-site sale and trade school; their lunchtime hours would be filled with speeches or performances from visiting dignitaries (actors, musicians, poets); and they would receive a substantial pension upon retirement. They would be housed, if they liked, in Olivetti-constructed modern homes and apartments. Their children would receive free day care, and expecting mothers would be granted 10 months maternity leave. July would be a time of holiday, so that workers with homes in the surrounding countryside could tend to small farms — it was important to the company that workers not feel a division between city and country. Italy’s best Modernist architects would be hired to design in the Modernist style: Factories, canteens, offices and study areas would be airy palaces of glass curtain walls, flat concrete roofs and glazed brick tile. It would be a model for the nation, and for the world.
Utopia, Abandoned
great read
The Italian town Ivrea was once a model for workers’ rights and progressive design. Now, it’s both a cautionary tale and evidence of a grand experiment in making labor humane.
IN THE 1950S, the small town of Ivrea, which is about an hour’s train ride north of Turin, became the site of an unheralded experiment in living and working. Olivetti, a renowned designer and manufacturer of typewriters and accounting machines, decided to provide for its employees through retirement. They were given the opportunity to take classes at an on-site sale and trade school; their lunchtime hours would be filled with speeches or performances from visiting dignitaries (actors, musicians, poets); and they would receive a substantial pension upon retirement. They would be housed, if they liked, in Olivetti-constructed modern homes and apartments. Their children would receive free day care, and expecting mothers would be granted 10 months maternity leave. July would be a time of holiday, so that workers with homes in the surrounding countryside could tend to small farms — it was important to the company that workers not feel a division between city and country. Italy’s best Modernist architects would be hired to design in the Modernist style: Factories, canteens, offices and study areas would be airy palaces of glass curtain walls, flat concrete roofs and glazed brick tile. It would be a model for the nation, and for the world.
Utopia, Abandoned
great read