Writers, Photographers, Painters and Architects at Italia ’61
How could the greatest names in the cultural debate be brought together in one place – people like the author-director Mario Soldati, the painter Renato Guttuso, the photographer Ugo Mulas, the engineer Pierluigi Nervi and the architect Gio Ponti? All it took was a couple of issues of Pirelli magazine in 1961, the year when Italy celebrated its Unification.
“See You in 2011” was the article published in issue no. 4, in August 1961. This was a photo reportage from Italia ’61, the International Labour Exhibition in Turin that told the story of the country’s first century, united under the banner of cooperation and commitment. Most of the photos are in black and white, showing a Turin Expo “with no pushing or shoving, without that strange atmosphere in which confusion, weariness, noise, and a great desire to see things becomes cheerful elation.” The author of the report was Ugo Mulas, the first of the great names who would come together in the pages of the Pirelli magazine devoted to the event in Turin. This was the time when the collaboration between the Lombard photographer and the historic company magazine was just beginning: the photos of Turin ’61 came just a few months after his reportage on Rome of the 1960 Olympics. From then on, Mulas’s picture stories roamed far and wide, from rubber plantations in Brazil to the sculptor Thomas Moore’s journey into marble, to illustrations for Vittorio Sereni’s articles through to his portrait of the artist Lucio Fontana.
One of Mulas’s photos for “See You in 2011” is a striking one in lively colours: the photo of a mosaic on display in the Pirelli pavilion at the Expo. And here we have the second great name: that of the painter Renato Guttuso. It was his drawing of La Ricerca Scientifica, which was used by the master mosaicists of the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Ravenna to create the mosaic for Italia ’61: “a dramatic summary of man’s long journey to understand nature and its laws”. Today, this great mosaic and its preparatory cartoon are in the spaces of the Pirelli Foundation in Milan, together with other sketches and drawings that Guttuso made in 1959 – also for the magazine – to illustrate the travel diary in Egypt with Franco Fellini, the pseudonym of the writer Giovanni Pirelli.
The cover of issue no. 4 of 1961 of Pirelli magazine was taken from another photo by Mulas: one of the unmistakable columns of the Palazzo del Lavoro in Turin, which was home to Italia ’61. And here we have another two illustrious personalities: the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi and the architect Gio Ponti. Nervi put his name to this symbol of the Unification of Italy in Turin, while Gio Ponti had worked with him the previous year on another symbol of Italian modernity: the quintessentially Milanese Pirelli Tower. Both of them, Nervi and Ponti, would entrust their ideas about architecture to the pages of Pirelli magazine a number of times: from the engineer-architect Nervi’s “The Art of Building” and “Resistance by Form” to Gio Ponti’s “An Architect’s Experience” and “The Perpetuity of a Building”. The last of these was written to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his vertical jewel, also known as the “Pirellone”.
In the last issue in 1961 of Pirelli magazine, we find “Italian Memorandum”, with the subtitle: “What I learned while working at the Exhibition of the Regions at Italia ’61”. Another famous name: Mario Soldati. The eclectic writer-director-journalist from Turin had been entrusted with organising the “Exhibition of the Regions”, as an integral part of Italia ’61, with the aim of facilitating the adoption of the new form of administration. This collection of top-name opinions for an Italy of almost sixty years ago is possibly a memorandum that is just as applicable to Italy today.
How could the greatest names in the cultural debate be brought together in one place – people like the author-director Mario Soldati, the painter Renato Guttuso, the photographer Ugo Mulas, the engineer Pierluigi Nervi and the architect Gio Ponti? All it took was a couple of issues of Pirelli magazine in 1961, the year when Italy celebrated its Unification.
“See You in 2011” was the article published in issue no. 4, in August 1961. This was a photo reportage from Italia ’61, the International Labour Exhibition in Turin that told the story of the country’s first century, united under the banner of cooperation and commitment. Most of the photos are in black and white, showing a Turin Expo “with no pushing or shoving, without that strange atmosphere in which confusion, weariness, noise, and a great desire to see things becomes cheerful elation.” The author of the report was Ugo Mulas, the first of the great names who would come together in the pages of the Pirelli magazine devoted to the event in Turin. This was the time when the collaboration between the Lombard photographer and the historic company magazine was just beginning: the photos of Turin ’61 came just a few months after his reportage on Rome of the 1960 Olympics. From then on, Mulas’s picture stories roamed far and wide, from rubber plantations in Brazil to the sculptor Thomas Moore’s journey into marble, to illustrations for Vittorio Sereni’s articles through to his portrait of the artist Lucio Fontana.
One of Mulas’s photos for “See You in 2011” is a striking one in lively colours: the photo of a mosaic on display in the Pirelli pavilion at the Expo. And here we have the second great name: that of the painter Renato Guttuso. It was his drawing of La Ricerca Scientifica, which was used by the master mosaicists of the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Ravenna to create the mosaic for Italia ’61: “a dramatic summary of man’s long journey to understand nature and its laws”. Today, this great mosaic and its preparatory cartoon are in the spaces of the Pirelli Foundation in Milan, together with other sketches and drawings that Guttuso made in 1959 – also for the magazine – to illustrate the travel diary in Egypt with Franco Fellini, the pseudonym of the writer Giovanni Pirelli.
The cover of issue no. 4 of 1961 of Pirelli magazine was taken from another photo by Mulas: one of the unmistakable columns of the Palazzo del Lavoro in Turin, which was home to Italia ’61. And here we have another two illustrious personalities: the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi and the architect Gio Ponti. Nervi put his name to this symbol of the Unification of Italy in Turin, while Gio Ponti had worked with him the previous year on another symbol of Italian modernity: the quintessentially Milanese Pirelli Tower. Both of them, Nervi and Ponti, would entrust their ideas about architecture to the pages of Pirelli magazine a number of times: from the engineer-architect Nervi’s “The Art of Building” and “Resistance by Form” to Gio Ponti’s “An Architect’s Experience” and “The Perpetuity of a Building”. The last of these was written to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his vertical jewel, also known as the “Pirellone”.
In the last issue in 1961 of Pirelli magazine, we find “Italian Memorandum”, with the subtitle: “What I learned while working at the Exhibition of the Regions at Italia ’61”. Another famous name: Mario Soldati. The eclectic writer-director-journalist from Turin had been entrusted with organising the “Exhibition of the Regions”, as an integral part of Italia ’61, with the aim of facilitating the adoption of the new form of administration. This collection of top-name opinions for an Italy of almost sixty years ago is possibly a memorandum that is just as applicable to Italy today.
