Having become at an early age, with his brother Piero, part of the management of Pirelli & C. founded by his father, Giovan Battista, Alberto Pirelli was to lead the company for many years, effectively contributing to its broad expansion.

A major participant in the economic and political life of his time, his intensive career was linked to the two World Wars and to the overwhelming political and economic events which left a deep mark on those years and which saw him as a sophisticated lead player on a global scale in diplomacy, finance and business.

Vita di Alberto Pirelli (1882-1971)
La politica attraverso l’economia
Nicola Tranfaglia, published by Einaudi, 2010

In this book Angelo Montenegro deals, for the period between the two World Wars, with the company’s international affairs, its reconversions, the relations with the fascist regime and the role played by Alberto Pirelli.

Pietro Anelli and Gabriella Bonvini instead examine, starting after the Second World War, the problems relating to post-war reconstruction, the reconversions, the economic boom and the subsequent recession from the special standpoint of trade union relations.

Pirelli 1914-1980
Corporate strategy and industrial relations in the history of a multinational
Dalla Prima Guerra Mondiale all’autunno caldo
P. Anelli, G. Bonvini, A. Montenegro, published by Franco Angeli, 1985

In the second volume of the series Pirelli 1914-1980: Corporate strategy and industrial relations in the history of a multinational, Piero Bolchini traces the history of the international Pirelli-Dunlop agreement which lasted around ten years and which led to major innovations, not only corporate, and also had repercussions on the trade union movement.

The research, carried out in England and in Italy, sets out to analyse the economic, financial and organisational aspects, the industrial relations, the process of technological advance and the interrelations between these factors in the development of the Group.

Pirelli 1914-1980
Corporate strategy and industrial relations in the history of a multinational
Il Gruppo Pirelli-Dunlop gli anni più lunghi
Piero Bolchini, published by Franco Angeli, 1985

The shop floor used as a basis for grasping the meaning of capitalistic growth; the status of workers analysed to highlight elements of a rift in relation to the system; changes in the relations between class organisations examined in order to understand the evolution of workers’ consciousness. With Pirelli as an “exemplary” case in point.

Its management has in fact succeeded in innovating a traditional structure, in implementing impressive technological transformations and in structuring and expanding production to become one of the greatest European finance and production groups.
The survey, performed by Piero Bolchini, is structured into three areas of research: the first deals with the economical and financial growth of the Pirelli Group, its structure and the policy of expansion adopted after the War. The second covers the evolution in production ratios, technological advance and its effects on the status of workers.

The third, entitled “workers’ struggles and class systems”, maps out an outline of the trade union and political development on the shop floor, analysing in particular the relationships between the work force and the organisations and the transformations occurring in this area from the period after the First World War to date.

La Pirelli: operai e padroni
Piero Bolchini, published by Samonà e Savelli, 1967

Montenegro, Albania, Berlin and the work camps for the migrants of the Third Reich, Russia and the ruinous Don River retreat represent the painful stages in the human and political maturity of Giovanni Pirelli before he joined the Resistance.

These previously unpublished letters give a full picture of the civil passion, lucidity and struggle of one of the liveliest consciences of the Italian and European left and the voice of a true writer.

Giovanni Pirelli.
Un mondo che crolla. Lettere 1938-1943
Edited by Nicola Tranfaglia
Published by Rosellina Archinto, 1990

Italian business communication from post-war reconstruction to the end of the 1960s. This is the focus of the book , by Giorgio Bigatti and Carlo Vinti, in collaboration with the ISEC Foundation and with the support of the Pirelli Foundation.

The book discusses a number of topics of a general nature: from the arrival of public relations offices to the corporate world to market surveys as a tool for targeting marketing efforts and the relationship with U.S. marketing practices, including a number of case studies such as Eni, Finmeccanica, Italsider, Olivetti, La Rinascente, and Pirelli.

For Pirelli, Chiara Guizzi, archivist for the Pirelli Historical Archive, has analysed the relationship between Pirelli’s marketing unit and its sales force, with a particular focus on the magazines published by the Marketing office and intended for the sales offices. These included Collaborazione (1945-1950), created during the challenging post-war recovery in order to restore relations with the sales network, and Pi vendere (1958-1970), the periodical for tyre retailers created during the height of the economic boom and intended to establish a beneficial dialog with the end point of the sales organisation, i.e. the point of sale.

Published by Guerini & Associati, the book was presented on Wednesday, 17 November, during the event Comunicare l’impresa. Editoria d’azienda, progetto grafico e identità (Communicating Business. Corporate publishing, graphic design and identity), which was held in Venice in conjunction with Corporate Culture Week.

Pirelli. Stories of work. Men, Machines and Ideas (published by Mondadori) is a book that tells the story of work and of the workers that have represented the Pirelli Group, day in and day out, for 136 years – stories of workers and machines, of rubber plantations and cable-laying ships, of strikes and of great discoveries, of great glass offices, industrial districts, and research labs.

With forewords by Antonio Calabrò, Director of Corporate Affairs for the Pirelli Group, the French economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi, and the Italian author Erri De Luca, Racconti di Lavoro contains fifteen chapters that present documents and other texts from the Pirelli Historical Archive or other sources that are a part of the Group’s past and present in one form or another. Page after page, the book is a lengthy photographic novel that takes us from the images of the first factory in Milan, where the company’s founder, Giovanni Battista Pirelli, began producing rubber products in 1873, to present day and contemporary workplaces, from Settimo Torinese to Slatina, from Breuberg to Yanzhou and to the factories in Brazil.

And in the background we see the research and development labs that have always been the driving force of innovation for the Group, whether it be for the old power substations of the 1800s or the advanced Pirelli Labs that study nanotechnologies and photonics.

The year 2007 was an important one for Pirelli in that it marked 100 years of commitment to sport. It was in June 1907 when Prince Scipione Borghese, the journalist Luigi Barzini, and the mechanic Ettore Guizzardi got into their Itala in Beijing and headed out for Paris. It was in that Itala that they won the most famous rally of all time on Pirelli tyres.

Throughout the last century, a great deal of sport has borne the Pirelli trademark. And not just in automobile racing. Across the years, we have also seen the P Lunga in motorcycle racing, in the great cycling classics, and on aircraft that kicked of the era of air racing in the early 1900s. Not to mention Pirelli in football, between a leather ball and a black and blue jersey. Or athletics, from the “friendly giant”, Adolfo Consolini, who trained at the Pirelli athletic centre, to Carl Lewis’s virtual sprint. And fencing, from the tip of the foil to the uniform of Diana Bianchedi. As well as, of course, tennis. And at sea from the start, whether in an inflatable dinghy, a sailboat, or a scuba suit.

A hundred years of sport. A hundred years of winning. But always with a precise mission: to be an integral part of sports. Not a label stuck there by chance, but rather a technical partner always focused on changing technologies in all fields of competition.

A hundred years that we wanted to celebrate with a book of photos.

In the Pirelli Historical Archives, among other documents dating back to 1911, there is a product list with sizes and prices of tyres the company produced at that time. It is here we see the size “1000 x 150” scribbled in by hand. This was the size that, for the first time, made truck weights possible on pneumatic tyres.

A hundred years have passed since those first experiments with giant tyres. A hundred year anniversary that Pirelli has celebrated at the Izmit facilities in Turkey with a photo exhibit and a video, produced by the Pirelli Foundation, that traces the company’s history producing pneumatic tyres for industrial vehicles.