One vision: Adriano Olivetti’s. Two architects: the Milanese Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini. Three years—albeit dramatic ones—between 1939 and 1941. This was the setting in which, in Ivrea, just a short distance from the historic Red Brick Factory built by Camillo Olivetti, an ambitious and remarkably innovative urban development project took shape. Alongside the expansion of the ICO Workshops and the construction of the Olivetti Nursery School, Figini and Pollini also designed the Borgo Olivetti Social Housing, one of Italy’s first examples of social housing financed entirely by a private company.
At a time when Ivrea was undergoing profound and continuous transformation, three distinct yet complementary projects emerged in the same area, all conceived by the same architects: one dedicated to industrial production, one to early childhood education, and one to everyday living. Together, they embodied the coherent vision that inspired the development of the Olivetti community: a constant search for balance between work and life, profit and social responsibility, functionality and beauty.
Located along the long side of the area occupied by the Nursery School, the Social Housing, designed to accommodate 24 families of Olivetti employees, is a four-storey gallery-access apartment building, with the ground floor devoted to service areas. Inspired by the principles of modern international architecture of the 1930s, the parallelepiped-shaped building is oriented to provide the apartments with bright, south-facing views, while the service rooms and stairwells, more sheltered, are located on the north side. The simplicity of its geometric forms is enhanced by the use of local materials and architectural details, most notably the wooden finishes of the balconies: a design choice that would influence many subsequent Olivetti residential projects.
The six houses located “behind” this building should not be overlooked. Commissi>
