The Pirelli industrial district in Settimo Torinese is now on display – from the laying of the first stone to the creation of the backbone, the heart of the entire project – at the exhibit “Stazione Futuro. Qui si rifà l’Italia”, which opened yesterday, 17 March, as part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

The exhibit is a voyage that embarks from the present and leads us on a tour of the Italy of tomorrow, made up of the stories great and small of those who work here day in and day out.

The stories of the ideas, prototypes, products, and projects that represent the highest expression of Italian creativity and innovation by public bodies, private-sector research centres, large corporations, and individual inventors are told through sophisticated, multimedia content, such as 3D video, holograms, and augmented reality.

The exhibit covers a range of fields and industries: energy, environmental protection, waste management, chemicals, textiles, mobility, the home, health and diet, communication, robotic, space and work. And it is on this last area that the Pirelli industrial hub project particularly focuses, in the form of an innovative, technologically advanced factory, which testifies to the company’s faith in Italian manufacturing and to its commitment to continue investing in the region.

Forging a special link with the workers, who, in the work they did, saw a chance of satisfying their needs, was an essential element if the enterprise was to succeed. Such was the view of its founder, Giovanni Battista Pirelli.

Welfare provision at Pirelli came into being with the enterprise itself (1872), and the assiduous work of social and welfare support that followed gathered momentum over the years in step with the growth of the firm.

An interesting account of welfare activities by Pirelli between the turn of the nineteenth century and the early post-1945 period was given by Valerio Varini (Researcher at the Università degli Studi di Bicocca) during the symposium “Il welfare nella storia dell’impresa italiana” (Welfare in the history of Italian business undertakings), held at the Fondazione Pirelli on 16th February this year. The mutual benefit fund, the Pirelli firms Employees’ Club, the first foundation formed to ensure independence in the choice of welfare to provide, the factory as a haven of refuge, and the change in the nature of company-sourced welfare support immediately after the end of the Second World War – these and other issues were addressed by Valerio Varini in his paper, which is now available for downloading as a pdf file.

Tyre technology, the financial and operating strategies of an Italian multinational, its history and corporate culture were the topics discussed today with over 40 students of the Istituto Tecnico Commerciale secondary school in Pioltello, many of whom will be graduating this year.

For these young people, this was an important opportunity to see the company from the inside and to understand its strategies and processes – an opportunity of particular importance for those about to complete their studies and enter the job market or for those who are planning to go to university, maybe even to study engineering.

Once this very special lesson (an overview of 139 years of Pirelli history) was finished, the students were invited to visit the Foundation’s Historical Archives, which holds the most important traces of this long history, including the creativity and innovation, and company documents showing the most important milestones in the history, as well as video and photos of great historical value.

Finally, before saying goodbye, they took a quick look at the cooling tower, the modern-day symbol of Pirelli’s corporate culture and of the conversion of the Bicocca area from an industrial site to one of Milan’s new residential neighbourhoods.

Tyre technology, the financial and operating strategies of an Italian multinational, its history and corporate culture were the topics discussed today with over 40 students of the secondary school Istituto Tecnico Commerciale in Pioltello, many of whom will be graduating this year.

For these young people, this was an important opportunity to see the company from the inside and to understand its strategies and processes – an opportunity of particular importance for those about to complete their studies and enter the job market or for those who are planning to go to university, maybe even to study engineering.

Once this very special lesson (an overview of 139 years of Pirelli history) was finished, the students were invited to visit the Foundation’s Historical Archives, which hold the most important traces of this long history, including the creativity expressed, the innovation, and company documents showing the most important milestones in this history, as well as video and photos of great historical value.

Finally, before saying goodbye, they took a quick look at the cooling tower, the modern-day symbol of Pirelli’s corporate culture and of the conversion of the Bicocca area from an industrial site to one of Milan’s new residential neighbourhoods.

Over a century of competition and victories on the world’s most challenging tracks that have laid the groundwork for Pirelli’s return to Formula 1 as told through beautiful photos of the period, which the Pirelli Foundation has put on display for the exhibit “In pista! L’automobilismo sportivo tra le due guerre mondiali”.

In Turin from 18 February to 27 March as part of the second edition of the Memorandum festival of historical photos, this exhibit is one of twenty-two that have been prepared for the event. The goal of the festival is to tell the story of society over the last 150 years in photos that deal with a wide range of topics involving the actions of both man and nature. With the collaboration of museums, foundations, industrial archives, photo agencies, and authors, it is a means of celebrating the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

Memorandum – Festival della Fotografia Storica
Turin, 18 February to 27 March 2011
Biella, 25 February to 27 March 2011

For more information, visit:
La Repubblica Torino.it

The ceremony to announce the winner of the first edition of Pirelli’s Leopoldo Award came to a close yesterday. This initiative was promoted by the secondary school Istituto di Istruzione Superiore in Rome and named after the former chairman of the Pirelli Group, Leopoldo Pirelli, as part of the Festival of Excellence in recognition of the excellent work done by students.

The school’s third and fourth-year students participated in the event by writing either a general-topic essay or an essay on one of the following topics: economics, industry, technology, or the world of work.

The award, a €5,000 scholarship donated by the Pirelli Foundation, was won by Cristina Tavazzani, who wrote an essay entitled “Un incontro a metà strada” (“A meeting half way”). The essay told of the difficulties she had explaining to her grandfather how technology – and social networks in particular – has evolved and what it can be used for.

Alberto Pirelli, son of Leopoldo, was on hand to present the award to Cristina in front of the local authorities, the school’s management, faculty and students, and the students’ families.

The Pirelli Foundation’s participation in this initiative is yet another confirmation of Pirelli’s commitment to society and, in particular, of the company’s support for education, which has characterised the organisation since it was founded it 1872.

Social initiatives, personnel policies and assistance services, the inspiration and successes of businesses in conducting these activities.

These are the topics to be discussed at the conference entitled “Le opere sociali delle imprese e degli imprenditori tra Ottocento e Novecento” (Social initiatives by Italian enterprise in the 19th and 20th centuries) organised by the Department of Political Economics of Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca and by the Pirelli and ISEC Foundations.

The two-day event (17-18 February 2011) is to be dedicated to welfare throughout the history of Italian enterprise (history, territories, the businesses and a comparison with the rest of Europe), a topic of extreme relevance due to the importance of corporate social responsibility in contemporary socio-economic thought.

Today is a special school day for the classes 3A and 3B of the Istituto Tecnico Commerciale secondary school in Pioltello in the province of Milan, as they are guests of the Pirelli Foundation today.
These students have had the opportunity to attend a very special lesson about the creation of the company, its growth, production and internationalisation, its social initiatives, and the Group’s corporate culture, all with the goal of taking a brief look at the company’s various operating processes.

At the end of the lesson, they then took a tour of the Foundation, its Historical Archives, and the cooling tower, which is a contemporary symbol of Pirelli’s corporate culture.
Participation was lively, and the inquisitive students asked a great many questions, as they were interested in learning more about such an organisation that is so important for this region, as well as in better understanding the company’s commitment to social initiatives.

For the Pirelli Foundation, young people and the world of education are key audiences for promoting the organisation’s historical and cultural heritage and for increasing awareness of Pirelli’s entrepreneurial culture.