A symphony for urban planners

“And the beauty that will shine from it will itself nourish the spirit.”

The industrial city of Ivrea is also an experiment in urban planning. Beauty is reflected not only in its products, but also in its factories and neighborhoods. Here, nature and architecture come together through the vision of its designers. Beauty goes beyond appearances, it broadens horizons and shapes the way people live and think. In post-war Italy, during the years of reconstruction and the economic “miracle”, when rapid development was transforming the country, the Olivetti industrial complex offered a different vision. As Geno Pampaloni wrote: “The factories do not impose an exclusive or intimidating presence; instead, they remain part of a natural landscape and a human story.”

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Heating Plant

Castellamonte District

Former Carpentry Workshop

West Residential Unit “Talponia”

Olivetti Neighbourhoods

UCCD Olivetti Houses

Heating Plant

The colors, the stained-glass windows, a certain feminine grace in a building whose purpose would otherwise be purely practical: instead, it becomes, also to the eye, one of the area's vital centers. It is a heating plant that seems to say: there is another kind of energy, no less important than the one it produces, and that energy is beauty.

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Castellamonte District

Homes for workers, homes for office employees, homes for managers, all within the same neighbourhood, rich in greenery and beauty. Here, Olivetti's ideas reach back through history and speak quietly in our ear: "Would you like a little more social harmony? Then don't divide the city by social class. Let their children play together. How? Start with the green spaces."

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Former Carpentry Workshop

A building dedicated to craftsmanship that was transformed in the 1950s. Since then, its adjustable sunshades have been reflected in the glass façades of the ICO Workshops, creating a play of reflections that brings the street to life. Architecture, after all, is a long, unending, and never truly finished meditation on light.

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West Residential Unit "Talponia"

An architectural work that never fails to amaze. It embraces seeming contradictions: it is one of Ivrea's defining landmarks, yet it speaks a universal language. Built largely underground, it is filled with light. Born from the bold imagination of its designers, it remains deeply rooted in the surrounding landscape.

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Olivetti Neighbourhoods

In Ivrea, urban planners and architects guided the transition from rural life to the industrial age. As Richard Neutra wrote: “Can we really have two kinds of design: one, devoted to beauty, for our leisure hours; the other, vast in scale and coarse in character, intended solely for practical utility?”

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UCCD Olivetti Houses

Olivetti's Ivrea is also an archipelago of homes built by the Employee Housing Consultancy Office, led by the visionary architect Emilio Aventino Tarpino. More tradition or more imagination? As Ludovico Quaroni wrote, the Olivetti intellectuals were "committed to building a modern tradition."

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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.