Olivetti is an Italian office machinery and furniture firm, located in Ivrea, Northern Italy.
For a large part of its history, Olivetti has followed the highest aesthetic standards in its business activities: architecture, interiors, advertising, graphics, corporate branding, as well as its manufactured products—office and computer equipment and office furniture. It has also played a leading role in funding major exhibits, has been the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and has established an enlightened corporate social welfare programme.
Beginnings
The Olivetti office machinery company was founded in 1908 by Camillo Olivetti, who designed its first typewriter, the M1, produced by assembly-line methods. Early on, its works were housed in fortress-like brick factory buildings. Olivetti commissioned Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini to design a complex including factory, workers’ housing, and hospital. The accommodation was completed in 1939 and the factory in 1940. In 1940-41, its nursery school was replaced with a new building by Figini and Pollini. From 1938, Olivetti’s son Adriano was president of the firm and initiated the policy of using consultant designers.
Notable Designers
Among the first wave of influential artists to work on the innovative face of Olivetti was the Swiss-born Bauhaus graduate Alexander (‘Xanti’) Schawinsky, who worked on the graphic and product design of Olivetti from 1933 to 1936. He was joined by Marcello Nizzoli, a graphic designer and exhibition designer. He became the company’s chief design consultant in 1936, the same year that artist and graphic designer Giovanni Pintori joined the company. Both Nizzoli and Pintori focused on architectural, product and advertisement design, which was also one in which the graphic design company Studio Boggeri played a significant role.
Early Products
Products of this time included the 1935 Studio 42 typewriter by Schawinsky, Figini, and Pollini, and the 1940 MC 4S Summa calculator by Marcello Nizzoli. The rounded, sculptural appearance of Nizzoli’s Lexicon 80 typewriter from 1948 was very much in keeping with the widespread contemporary interest in an organic form that could be seen in other well-known Italian designs such as Pininfarina’s Cisitalia Berlinetta from 1946 or Gio Ponti’s La Pavoni coffee machine from 1949. Several typewriters followed, including the Praxis 48 typewriter of 1964 (with Hans von Klier) and the bright red Valentine portable of 1969 (with Perry King, see King-Miranda Associati).
Mario Bellini, another leading figure in Italian design, created many designs for Olivetti from the 1960s to the 1980s, including the striking orange Divisumma 18 calculator from 1972 with soft keyboard and the Praxis 35 typewriter from 1980.
Radical designer Michele de Lucchi, who was named design consultant to Olivetti in 1979, became head of the design department in 1992, focusing on the design of electronic devices and computers, such as the 1993 Filos 33 notebook and the 1995 Echos 20 laptop.
Office Furniture
Olivetti was also noted for its design of office furniture, prominent examples of which included the Arcos office furniture system developed by BBPR in 1960, the groundbreaking Synthesis 45 system of the 1970s by Ettore Sottsass and the Ephesos system of 1992 by Antonio Citterio. Olivetti followed its commitment to a cohesive and design-rich culture by ordering leading companies and designers to shape its interior through the commissioning of buildings by prominent designers. For example, the BBPR design studio designed the company’s offices in New York in 1954, the Olivetti showroom in Venice in 1957, and the Paris offices in Gae Aulenti in the next decade.
Recognition
In 1974, the American Institute of Architects recognised the effectiveness of the company’s corporate identity strategy. Olivetti was awarded the Industrial Arts Medal ‘for the history of excellence in the communication of its image by product design, corporate relations, architecturally distinguished manufacturing and merchandising facilities and the funding of various social, educational, leisure and cultural initiatives for its employees and the general public.’
Source
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.
Oxford University Press. (2004). A Dictionary of Modern Design (1st ed.).
Interested in ‘Design History’ Read More
-
Formes Utiles – French Organisation and Exhibitions
In 1949, Formes Utiles became an independent association of UAM (Union des Artistes Modernes) through the influence of René Herbst and Charlotte Perriand and its first exhibition held at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Its theoretician was architect André Hermant.Read More →
-
Silver and twentieth-century design
The impact of silver metal technology has driven the development of modern furnishings throughout the 20th century. The transformation of a chair into a sculptural statement, for example. Interior metal objects have not always been at the forefront of modern design within a multi-function. With the emphasis on warmth and comfort in the home, the scope for a wide range of metal products for this domain is not there.Read More →
-
William Caxton (1422 – 1491) Father of English Printing
William Caxton learned about the mystery of printing in the Low Countries, and it was in Bruges that he translated a French work, ” The Tales of Troy, ” through his printing press.Read More →
-
Hermann Gretsch (1895 – 1950) designer for Arzberg
Hermann Gretsch was a German architect, engineer and product designer. In the 1930s, Gretsch worked for the Porzellanfabrik Arzberg.Read More →
-
Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths
The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, also known as the Goldsmiths’ Company, is one of London’s Great Twelve Livery Companies. It is correctly known as The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Goldsmiths of the City of London. The Company’s headquarters are located in the City of London’s Goldsmiths’ Hall. Read More →
-
Aldus Manuitius (1449 – 1515) – pioneer of printing
The type in which this sentence is written is called “italic”. Aldus Manutius the man who invented it died almost 500 years ago and his type is still in use. Today publishing a manuscript is almost instantaneous, a new best seller can be placed on Amazon and I can buy a copy minutes later. To look at the books which came off the Venitian presses of Aldus Manutius is a strange experience.Read More →
-
The 40s and 50s – On the Road with Design
The exaggerated style was an essential look. The gleaming chrome fins conveyed speed. A car that was higher in the front than the back did the same. The quality of the car’s face — two headlamps for the eyes, a grill for the nose, and a fender for the mouth – was frequently highlighted. This gave the vehicle the appearance of a devoted companion with a distinct personality.Read More →
-
Paris and Art in 1950s – influence on design
Paris, newly liberated from the German occupation, sprung to life during the 1950s as a centre for all modes of artistic endeavour, most notably in fine art, literature, and music. Its association with romantic literary figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Roland Barthes made the city incredibly appealing to every serious-minded man or woman. Read More →
-
The Schloss Blühnbach castle in Austria
Schloss Blühnbach is a hunting castle in the Austrian Alps dated from the 17th century. It was extended in 1911 by Archduke Francis Ferdinand; it also includes his art and antiques.Read More →
-
Taylorism was a search for industrial efficiency
His 1911 book Principles of Scientific Management outlined these concepts, and they have influenced various aspects of design, including labour-saving kitchens and more ergonomic household equipment. These included the writings of fellow American Christine Frederick, who published Scientific Management in the Home in 1915, and Lillian Gilbreth’s assessments of domestic efficiency for the Brooklyn Gas Company in 1930, which looked at the kitchen as a location of industrial production. Read More →
-
A Century of Progress International Exposition – Chicago 1933 – 1934
An exhibition summary noted that the nation, “then still mired in the malaise of the Great Depression, could glimpse a happier not-too-distant future, all driven by innovation in science and technology.” Fair visitors saw the new wonders in rail travel, cars, architecture, and robots that smoke cigarettes. The Fair “emphasised technology and progress, a utopia, or perfect world, founded on democracy and manufacturing.”Read More →
-
Vorticism British Art Movement – 1914 – 1918
Vorticist painting merged cubist reality fragmentation with hard-edged imagery taken from machines and urban environments. It was essentially a British version of futurism, albeit with ideological distinctions. Lewis was a staunch opponent of the futurists. Lawrence Atkinson, Jessica Dismorr, Cuthbert Hamilton, William Roberts, Helen Saunders, Edward Wadsworth, and the sculptors’ Sir Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska were among the group’s other members. Read More →
-
Pre-Raphaelites Brotherhood – British Artists Group
The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of British artists. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones led the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood from 1848. Read More →
-
The Wit and Humour of the Gibigiana Table Lamp
Castiglioni’s approach to design is characterised by wit and humour, which is portrayed here by a shape that resembles an animal or bird. The Gibigiana is a table light that may be adjusted. It includes a dimmer and produces reflected light. Read More →
-
During the 1920s Jaegar clothes not just fashion but function & lifestyle
During the twentieth century, a movement arose that advocated for clothing to be worn as part of a sensible, healthy lifestyle rather than only for fashion. These concepts sprang from the work of nineteenth-century fashion reformers, in the same way, that English writer Edward Carpenter popularised the open-toed leather sandal for men. Read More →
-
“Just in time” design concept
Just in time” design concept, this practice became an increasingly important aspect of economic manufacturing and distribution. The ability to link sales data from retail outlets and checkout terminals with centralised corporate manufacturing and distribution systems ‘just in time’ eliminated the need for manufacturer-retailers like Benetton, an Italian clothing company, to keep large amounts of stock on hand (thus wasting valuable space).Read More →
-
Japan Advertising Artists Club (JAAC) pioneer of Japanese Graphic Design
In the 1960s, the JAAC’s philosophy came under fire for being overly reliant on exhibitions as a platform for innovative ideas. Furthermore, during the turbulent 1960s, a perceived emphasis on aesthetics at the expense of social significance, combined with allegations of elitism, led to the organisation’s disbandment in 1970.Read More →
-
Linoleum created as an inexpensive floor covering
Frederick Walton invented linoleum in Britain in 1860. Walton coated flax cloth with a combination of gum, cork dust, resin and linseed oil in search of a cheap floor covering. An amalgamation of the Latin Linum (‘flax’) and oleum (‘oil’) formed the word linoleum.Read More →
-
Surrealism – Art & Design Term
Surrealism was one of the most influential and disruptive trends of the twentieth century, flourishing especially in the 1920s and 1930s and offering a radical contrast to Cubism’s rational and formal features. It emphasised the positive rather than the nihilistic, unlike Dada, from which it derived in many aspects. Surrealism aimed to gain access to the subconscious mind and convert this stream of thought into art.Read More →
-
ISOTYPE – International System of Typographic Picture Education
ISOTYPE was created as a mechanism of communicating statistics using graphic symbols. It was an essential part of Otto Neurath’s (1882–1945) worldwide graphic language, which he created in Vienna following World War I. Originally known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, ISOTYPE was created to make complex statistical information about housing, health, education, and other vital priorities more understandable to the general public in the difficult economic and political circumstances of 1920s Vienna by presenting the data in a visually appealing format. Read More →