Entre las arquitecturas diseminadas de Olivetti. Descubrir el patrimonio industrial al aire libre

For more than fifty years Ivrea has been the expression of the most current Italian architectural culture but, assuming a concept of urban identity that changes over time, the city is transformed through the constantly evolving relationship between the objective values of the heritage and the subjective values perceived by the population. Ivrea represents an unusual model of an industrial city and imposes itself as an alternative answer to the questions raised by the fast evolution of industrialisation processes. The outcome of Olivetti's vision and socio-cultural project, it represents the real innovation of Italy in the 20th century. As a consequence of the decline of the Olivetti factory, the city suffered a huge blow that had serious economic repercussions on the territory. Heritage had to be able to participate in the transformations that would impact the fabric and life of the city, through appropriate reuse and adaptation to housing standards. The turning point in the inevitable decline was the creation of an important open-air museum, made up of Olivetti's architecture disseminated throughout the urban fabric. The MaAM (Museo a cielo aperto dell'Architettura Moderna) has been the impulse for a collective awareness to preserve the uniqueness of this heritage and its protection, collected and valued by the urban plan that has made its own values, relaunching the informative and educational function in a path that is destined to be constantly renewed. On this itinerary there are examples of industrial architecture, residences and social services designed by the most important Italian architects of the 30s and 60s. Ivrea is an example of territory and enterprise in an inseparable organic unit, embodying human, environmental and architectural values, and for these reasons has finally been recognized as "Ivrea Città Industriale del XX secolo" of UNESCO's world heritage.