Laboratory-Museum Tecnologic@mente

Founded in 2008 to promote knowledge of Natale Capellaro’s innovative genius, Olivetti’s values, and scientific and technological culture, the Natale Capellaro Foundation created the Tecnologic@mente Laboratory-Museum. A unique institution that has inspired the commitment of numerous volunteers—many of them retired Olivetti employees—who contribute their expertise, memories, and deep sense of belonging. The first step was the creation of an exhibition showcasing the most significant writing and calculating machines in industrial history. Later, a series of educational projects for schools was developed and introduced with a clear objective: to promote what might be described as an “Olivettian” balance between technological development and the individual.

Recently expanded and renewed, the collection includes sections dedicated to Camillo Olivetti (typewriters), Natale Capellaro (mechanical and electric calculators), Pier Giorgio Perotto (electronic computing), and Roberto Olivetti (personal computers). The educational programme is aimed at Italian schools of all levels. Broad and wide-ranging, it helps children and young people understand and make conscious use of today’s technological tools. In this way, the Tecnologicamente Laboratory-Museum and the Natale Capellaro Foundation preserve and creatively reinterpret the cultural legacy that Olivetti built in the area over the course of a century.

Who was Natale Capellaro?

Autumn 1959. Just a few weeks before his death, speaking to a journalist during an interview, Adriano Olivetti remarked: “Even in the life of a factory there is such a thing as providence. Imagine this: the man whose inventions now account for 30, indeed 40 per cent of Olivetti’s turnover was someone we already had in our midst, and we believe there isn’t another like him anywhere in Italy, not even in hiding.” These words convey the extraordinary genius of this designer from Ivrea, whose formal education ended after primary school.

Born in Ivrea in 1902, the second of three children in a family of shoemakers, Natale Capellaro joined Olivetti as an apprentice at the age of just fourteen. Assigned to the assembly department for the M1, the company’s first typewriter, he immediately displayed an exceptional talent for mechanics. His career was remarkable: after improving production methods, anticipating the principles of scientific management, he became department manager at just twenty-six. He later moved into product design, where he developed machines such as the Elettrosumma 14, Multisumma 14, and Divisumma 14.

After the Second World War, he became Technical Managing Director and, particularly through the Divisumma 24 and Tetractys, brought mechanical calculating technology to its highest level of development.

He retired in 1966, four years after receiving an honoris causa degree in Engineering, and died in Turin in 1977.