Adriano Olivetti Showrooms

The design of typing machines is the most known expression of Olivetti industrial legacy, which produced an identity that was both innovative and complex, material and immaterial. These identities are the focus of an interdisciplinary research project conducted by ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and Università degli Studi di Ferrara, in partnership with the Association for the Olivetti historical archives in Ivrea. The book Olivetti Identities: Spaces and Languages 1933–1983 presents the results of such research with the aim of analyzing the Olivetti phenomenon as a whole, highlighting its main features in the context of the corporate evolution and of the approaches of such designers as Xanti Schawinsky, Renato Zveteremich, Ettore Sottsass, Hans von Klier, Egidio Bonfante, Walter Ballmer, among others. The time span subject of this analysis ranges from the establishment of the Olivetti advertisement office in 1933, to the opening of the permanent Olivetti pavilion at the Hannover fair in 1983, intended as a final step in a particularly efficient strategy of corporate identity. The volume is organised in four sections, dedicated to the design of showrooms, the exhibition design of fairs and expos, the analysis of languages that forged a corporate vocabulary, such as visual communication and interaction design, as well as cultural and promotional activities. A final section collects the witnesses of designers Santiago Miranda and George Sowden, as well as former Olivetti collaborators in sales and training. Two visual essays open and close the book featuring published and unpublished documents conserved at the Olivetti historical archives.