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Neri, Gabriele
2021eBook
This volume addresses the history of the “Colonia Olivetti” in Brusson (Aosta Valley, Italy), one of the holiday camps provided by the Olivetti Company for the children of its employees. The building, designed in 1955-57 by two young Italian architects, Leonardo Fiori and Claudio Conte, is an outstanding case study for several reasons. The two architects were selected through a public competition, in which figures like Carlo Scarpa, Vico Magistretti and Marcello D’Olivo, among others, participated. Therefore, the analysis of these projects, some of which almost completely unknown, offers a cross section of Italian architecture in the years of the so called “Economic Boom”, and highlights some key issues connected with the quick evolution of the country. On the one hand, the alpine context of Brusson required a deep reflection upon the relationship between modern architecture and the natural landscape, in a period during which mass-tourism transformed the way people experienced the mountain. On the other, the update of educational theories and pedagogical programs followed by the Olivetti Company led to a complete redefinition of the architectural typology – the “Colonia” – which Fascism had deeply characterized with propagandistic and political purposes during the 1920s and 1930s. The search for the autonomy of the child – as opposed to the previous decade’s tendency to sublimate the individual into the masses – produced a pedagogical renewal which had profound consequences on this kind of architecture. The winning project, conceived by Leonardo Fiori and Claudio Conte, provided a well-balanced answer to the many issues at stake, thanks to a careful approach to the natural and cultural context as well as to their innovative technical research. In collaboration with the Pasotti Company, which had extensive experience in the field of demountable structures, Fiori and Conte developed a new prefabricated building system that was connected to much of the contemporary research at the time. The Colonia Olivetti would become a “model-building”, a starting point for a long series of other structures such as the Pirovano lodge in the Dolomites and the many prefabricated school buildings that would spread from Northern to Southern Italy. The volume retraces the history of this outstanding building, and deals with all the themes that influenced its creation and character, thanks to a thorough survey carried out in many archives (Archivio del Moderno – USI, Balerna; Olivetti Historical Archive, Ivrea; Carlo Scarpa Archive, Treviso; Vico Magistretti Archive, Milano; Municipal Archive, Milano; Municipal Archive, Brusson; etc.). In addition to the text, the volume features a remarkable iconographical apparatus, parts of which were previously unknown, composed of architectural drawings, sketches, documents and pictures, including those by the photographer Enrico Cano, who – in a dialogue with the author – shot the building in 2019 in order to document its present condition.
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