Source: the venue’s website, checked on 07/11/2026.
In Ivrea, at the foot of the Piedmont Alps, Olivetti built a whole town around its typewriters: glass-walled workshops, a nursery, a canteen, social services, housing for workers and managers, designed by leading Italian architects from the 1930s to the 1960s. UNESCO listed it in 2018.
“
Camillo Olivetti founded the company in 1908; his son Adriano turned it into a social project. His 1945 book gave rise in 1947 to the Movimento Comunità, which held that industry should return its profits to the territory through social services and culture. A team sees here what a company owes the town that keeps it alive.
The Welcome Tour leaves the Visitor Centre on Via Jervis on the first Saturday of the month at 2.30 pm: 2.5 hours in Italian and English, €20 per person, including a flat in Talponia, the semicircular housing by Gabetti and Isola (1968-1971), and the nursery by Figini and Pollini (1939-1941). The Visitor Centre also books guided group tours.
Photo credits : PROCOPIODIMODENA (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) ; Ambra75 (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) ; Plumbago Capensis (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) ; Davide Mauro (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) ; André Corboz (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
We design and lead a learning expedition that goes through this place. You can also design it yourself with Agent A\lex.
Agent A\lex
