Prefabricated industrial architecture in Italy. Preservation versus transformation

The problem of the conservation or transformation of industrial complexes is not a question simply of decay, but also of the significance and values that an architectural work acquires (or loses) over time. In the collective imagination, there is nothing that suggests featureless and blighted suburbs so much as the concept of "prefabricated architecture". Drabness, seriality, reinforced concrete produced cheaply, architectural structures that are the fruit of chance or speculation, create a series of preconceptions which disturb, and sometimes distort, our reading and understanding of works that draw their strength from experimentation, variation in repetition, construction techniques and modular coordination. In Italy, certain industrial designers, including Marco Zanuso and Angelo Mangiarotti, produced excellence by applying industrial processes to the building sector and combining them with the sophistication of the industrial design of functional objects. Examples are the Olivetti Factory in Crema by Marco Zanuso (1967-1970) or the Armitalia Headquarters (1968-1971) and Snaidero Factory (1971-1978) by Angelo Mangiarotti. Each case is different and each building has its own history leading to alterations, conversions and deterioration. There is no one single solution, but instead many possible solutions. Certainly the key point that often determines the fate of buildings is the strategy for their reuse. In terms of instruments for ensuring a future for these prefabricated industrial complexes, ranging from institutional protection to a cultivated design fully aware of the need for conservation or maintenance practices, a fundamental factor is the process of acquiring knowledge about the architectural complexes, which can be read in a plurality of dimensions.