There are works that change cities, or at the very least add something so special that, once there, it becomes impossible to imagine doing without. The Natale Capellaro Footbridge is certainly one of these. Since 2013 it has united two parts of the city divided by the river, allowing everyone not only to cross comfortably on foot or by bicycle, but to enjoy a view of Ivrea that has no equal.
It is no coincidence that, at any hour of the day, people of all ages can be found settled on the wooden seats, lost in the landscape, or reading, or listening to music, or simply talking with someone. Because on this footbridge you do not simply pass through: you stop, and take in Ivrea at its most characteristic — its setting. Draped along the Dora, at the point where the lines of the mountains and the Anfiteatro Morenico converge, the city reveals itself in all its grace.
As Salvator Gotta once wrote, in what reads like a painting made of words:
“The hundred and twenty villages, from above and below, reach toward Ivrea as children reach with their souls and their arms toward their mother. Not only the four great roads, but the countless alleyways, the footpaths, the drove roads, down rocky slopes, through vineyards, across fields and along the banks of ditches, all make their way toward the chief town with a natural bearing and a joyful urgency, as all waters make their way toward the sea. And the closer one draws to the towered city, the wider the horizon opens, and the green laughs — that characteristic Canavese green, which seems of velvet, so dense are the grasses, the leaves, the mosses.”
Dedicated to Natale Capellaro, the brilliant Olivetti designer, this elegant structure — long dreamed of since the middle of the last century — has found its way naturally into the heart of the city, and into the hearts of those who live there or discover it for the first time. Water in the foreground, Ivrea further off, and the natural outline of the landscape: these are the protagonists of a view that seems almost to invite reflection.
One final note: Natale Capellaro, Olivetti’s Technical General Manager, was the man whose inventions propelled the company to the forefront of the global mechanical computing industry. His Tetractys and Divisumma 24, introduced in the mid-1950s, remain celebrated milestones in the history of computing. By naming the footbridge after him, Ivrea pays tribute to both his extraordinary ingenuity and his lifelong dedication to his work.
