La fabbrica prefabbricata. Marco Zanuso, Eduardo Vittoria, Stabilimento Olivetti, Crema, 1969

Built in just seven months, between February and August 1969, the Olivetti plant in Crema represents one of the three occasions for the application of the prefabricated reinforced concrete construction system designed by Marco Zanuso and Eduardo Vittoria in 1967 for the construction of the Italian factories of the company. The system, defined in collaboration with the engineer Antonio Migliasso, is in continuity with the previous projects for industrial buildings drawn up by Zanuso during the fifties, aimed at the integration of structures and plant equipment, but differs from the latter for the unprecedented comparison of the same design principles with prefabrication. The result is characterized first by the standardization of the three prefabricated structural components (a column, a main beam and a secondary beam) and by the definition of their design starting not only from the needs of the structure in place, but also from its construction through a prefabrication process capable of optimizing materials, energy, time, and labor. A real industrial design project applied to the spaces of that production which Marco Zanuso interpreted in structure and shape.