The House Organ Fatti e Notizie Goes Online:
A Journey through Our History
Today sees the expansion of the online archive section of the Pirelli Foundation website with an important new series of documents. The complete browsable collection of Fatti e Notizie, the Pirelli house organ published from 1950 through to the present day, is now available to the public.
“This paper aims to solve the problem of providing all employees with periodical information about events and news concerning our organisation, adopting strict criteria and a precise format”: this was how the company magazine for Pirelli Group employees in Italy announced its own birth in issue number 1 in February 1950. It came at the height of the reconstruction period after the catastrophe of the war, which had seen the bombing of Via Ponte Seveso in 1943 and of Bicocca in 1944, the destruction of the factory in Tivoli, the Nazi occupation, and mass deportations. The company understandably wanted to restore its strong, cohesive identity and offer workers the hope of peace and lasting well-being, and Fatti e Notizie was delivered free of charge to the homes of all employees. “The cost of this paper will be handsomely repaid if it manages to help strengthen the ties between all those who work to make the company efficient.”
During its early years, the house organ published practical information, such as news about health care for employees, the activities of the Cultural Centre and the Sports Centre, and of the Library, as well as about scholarships for students and initiatives for the elderly. Then there were reports on various sectors of the company, important news about the life of the Group and about the latest products to reach the market. In other words, a series of small aspects that, once they were gathered together, began to create a single great world: that of a Group that, day by day, was becoming an integrated, global force. In a life spanning almost 70 years, Fatti e Notizie can be seen as an increasingly wide-ranging overview of an entire, rapidly changing society reflected in the events of the company. This was the same philosophy at the heart of Pirelli magazine, published from 1948 to 1972, which can also be viewed online on the Pirelli Foundation site.
As the years passed, the pages of Fatti e Notizie became glossy and colourful. As tastes changed, so did the format. The number of pages increased in order to keep up with the increasingly extensive and complex world of Pirelli. And the content changed too: after the impetuous optimism of the 1950s and ’60s, the paper did not back away from the great confrontational issues of the 1970s: employment, migration, women’s issues, and the environment. It promoted wide-ranging, unprejudiced investigations, and then took up the challenge of global institutional information in the 1980s and ’90s, with a close look at breakthroughs in information technology regarding the organisation of work.
The digital world of the 2000s was almost within reach. Today, Fatti e Notizie is still published in printed format and available to all employees. It is also available in a daily version – published on the company intranet – with the latest news from the world of Pirelli.
Entire generations of Pirelliani have seen themselves in the photos of athletes on the Pro Patria sports ground in Bicocca, in the smiles of children at the holiday camp in Pietraligure, or in workers’ overalls receiving the “suggestion box” awards for their inventions, which have helped make cars safer and more efficient. Fatti e Notizie has been – and still is – a means of bringing people together by sharing issues common to all workers. Leafing through it will be like going on a long journey through Italy as it was in the twentieth century. A journey that, then as now, sees us all by the side of a “Long P” that has become such a part of our lives.
Today sees the expansion of the online archive section of the Pirelli Foundation website with an important new series of documents. The complete browsable collection of Fatti e Notizie, the Pirelli house organ published from 1950 through to the present day, is now available to the public.
“This paper aims to solve the problem of providing all employees with periodical information about events and news concerning our organisation, adopting strict criteria and a precise format”: this was how the company magazine for Pirelli Group employees in Italy announced its own birth in issue number 1 in February 1950. It came at the height of the reconstruction period after the catastrophe of the war, which had seen the bombing of Via Ponte Seveso in 1943 and of Bicocca in 1944, the destruction of the factory in Tivoli, the Nazi occupation, and mass deportations. The company understandably wanted to restore its strong, cohesive identity and offer workers the hope of peace and lasting well-being, and Fatti e Notizie was delivered free of charge to the homes of all employees. “The cost of this paper will be handsomely repaid if it manages to help strengthen the ties between all those who work to make the company efficient.”
During its early years, the house organ published practical information, such as news about health care for employees, the activities of the Cultural Centre and the Sports Centre, and of the Library, as well as about scholarships for students and initiatives for the elderly. Then there were reports on various sectors of the company, important news about the life of the Group and about the latest products to reach the market. In other words, a series of small aspects that, once they were gathered together, began to create a single great world: that of a Group that, day by day, was becoming an integrated, global force. In a life spanning almost 70 years, Fatti e Notizie can be seen as an increasingly wide-ranging overview of an entire, rapidly changing society reflected in the events of the company. This was the same philosophy at the heart of Pirelli magazine, published from 1948 to 1972, which can also be viewed online on the Pirelli Foundation site.
As the years passed, the pages of Fatti e Notizie became glossy and colourful. As tastes changed, so did the format. The number of pages increased in order to keep up with the increasingly extensive and complex world of Pirelli. And the content changed too: after the impetuous optimism of the 1950s and ’60s, the paper did not back away from the great confrontational issues of the 1970s: employment, migration, women’s issues, and the environment. It promoted wide-ranging, unprejudiced investigations, and then took up the challenge of global institutional information in the 1980s and ’90s, with a close look at breakthroughs in information technology regarding the organisation of work.
The digital world of the 2000s was almost within reach. Today, Fatti e Notizie is still published in printed format and available to all employees. It is also available in a daily version – published on the company intranet – with the latest news from the world of Pirelli.
Entire generations of Pirelliani have seen themselves in the photos of athletes on the Pro Patria sports ground in Bicocca, in the smiles of children at the holiday camp in Pietraligure, or in workers’ overalls receiving the “suggestion box” awards for their inventions, which have helped make cars safer and more efficient. Fatti e Notizie has been – and still is – a means of bringing people together by sharing issues common to all workers. Leafing through it will be like going on a long journey through Italy as it was in the twentieth century. A journey that, then as now, sees us all by the side of a “Long P” that has become such a part of our lives.
