The liberating power of culture

”to an extent no factory had ever achieved.”

In its time, Olivetti was a factory of masterpieces. Sculptors, painters, and poets helped shape a distinctive identity that earned the company worldwide recognition. More than that, knowledge and culture were fostered among employees in countless ways: through magazines, exhibitions, concerts and debates held both in the factory and in community centers. As Adriano Olivetti wrote: “Professional training alone is not enough. It is easy to train a mechanic to use a file, a lathe, or a milling machine. But if we fail to inspire in him an appreciation for what is good, what is right and what is beautiful, we will only have made him unhappy.”

Discover the places

Company Canteen and Recreation Club

The Church of San Bernardino

Laboratory-Museum Tecnologic@mente

East Residential Complex – Hotel La Serra

Study and Research Centre

Dora Hotel

Company Canteen and Recreation Club

If the people who work are individuals, and every individual is both body and spirit, then the lunch break cannot simply be time to eat. Nor can the canteen be merely the place where that happens. Hence these remarkable spaces, open to nature, where people can eat, rest, read, play, talk, or simply enjoy a moment of silence. Productivity? It benefits too.

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The Church of San Bernardino

Home to the Olivetti family in the early twentieth century, the church and convent house the fresco cycle by Giovanni Martino Spanzotti, Vita e Passione di Cristo — a precious example of Renaissance art in Piedmont. The true protagonist? Humanity itself: faces, figures, humble settings, a vision closely aligned with Franciscan ethics.

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Laboratory-Museum Tecnologic@mente

Two souls in one body: the Museum, with its collections of typewriters, mechanical and electronic calculators, and computers; and the Laboratory, with its educational programmes for Italian schools. All in the name of Natale Capellaro, the brilliant designer whose calculating machines helped make Olivetti a world leader.

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East Residential Complex – Hotel La Serra

Here is one of the boldest incursions of Olivetti architecture, with its distinctly international character, into the "old" city of Ivrea: part residential complex, part sports centre, part cultural hub, and even, in some ways, part ship. This giant typewriter of a building, where people can live, learn, swim, and even read, is waiting to be brought back to life.

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Study and Research Centre

A novel once observed that "Ivrea is a kind of beach where the future arrives in bottles." Perhaps that is why the building where new Olivetti products were conceived, besides being a masterpiece of architectural form, was built in the color of the sea?

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Dora Hotel

Historic restaurant, later a hotel, during the Olivetti era it became the favourite place to stay and meet for the intellectuals and artists who gravitated around the company. As the poet Giovanni Giudici recalled: "The Dora / humble and modest / dwelling – yet still the place - / whose thresholds, at this very hour / are graced by successful men."

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Visitor Centre — Ivrea, Industrial City of the 20th century

Via Jervis and the surrounding area are home to the buildings that make up the UNESCO World Heritage property’s core zone. Located in the historic “Portineria del Pino”, the Visitor Centre welcomes tourists and visitors.