“The Invisible Heart of a Tyre” was the title of the event that accompanied the presentation of the new PZero Silver, the first tyre to emerge from the Formula One experience. The venue was one of true excellence: the Hangar Bicocca, one of the world’s most prestigious spaces for contemporary-art exhibitions.

Illustrating the various processes involved in manufacturing a tyre, the “invisible heart” was represented by artistic installations, graphic works and video projections along an exhibition area of over a thousand square metres.
From rubber, the raw material, which was represented by a rubber forest, on jumbo screens over 20 metres high, to research and design, to the craftsmanship of expert chisellers all the way through to the end product. All this was narrated and interpreted using a contemporary artistic language that showed the public an industrial operation that is as fascinating as it is complex.

The event took place on Thursday 8 September in the presence of Marco Tronchetti Provera, the economists Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Severino Salvemini, the director of Team Ferrari Stefano Domenicali, and the McLaren team driver Jenson Button. For the finale, the actress Licia Maglietta interpreted some passages of “industrial” literature, once again demonstrating how art and industry, man and machine, are inextricably bound together.

Over a hundred years of racing under the “long P” banner form the heart of the “It Goes Like a Dream… Stories of Races, Drivers, Challenges and Successes” exhibition. Designed and put on by Fondazione Pirelli, it opens its doors to the public on Monday.

Drivers and races, tyres and cars, and more besides. The exhibition contains fragments of popular culture and international sport, with historic films never screened before in public, hundreds of photographs, advertising illustrations and original documents winding their way along a specially created small-scale reproduction of the Monza racing circuit.

The “It Goes like a Dream…” exhibition will remain open to the public until 4 Dicember.

“It Goes like a Dream…”
Pirelli, Stories of Races, Drivers, Challenges and Successes
Admission free

Opening: 12 September, 6.30 p.m.
Fondazione Pirelli
Viale Sarca, 222
20126 Milan

“There can be no technological development and innovation if the ground under an organisation is not fertile.” It was with these words that Marco Tronchetti Provera, chairman of Pirelli and of the Pirelli Foundation, presented the exhibit “L’anima di gomma. Estetica e tecnica al passo con la moda” (Heart of rubber. Beauty and technique in step with fashion) organised by the Pirelli Foundation, which was inaugurated on 20 June at the Triennale di Milano. The exhibit encapsulates the history and the future of Pirelli in the world of fashion, with a constant eye on technology and innovation, both of which underlie Pirelli PZero industrial design. It is presented in an innovative manner, in tune with the evolution of language and contemporary symbols.

In addition to Pirelli chairman Marco Tronchetti Presenti, also in attendance for the inauguration of the exhibit (running from 21 June to 24 July, entrance free of charge) were Triennale chairman Davide Rampello, the art historian Germano Celant, and the architect Alessandro Mendini, who came across one of his own works at the exhibit, one which he did during his university studies when he occasionally worked for Rivista Pirelli under the illustrious editor at that time, Arrigo Castellani.

“What we see here at the Triennale is not to be considered a work of mere patronage, but a concept of growth in enterprise together with the cultural organisations. Technology cannot grow if it fails to find the proper cultural setting,” said Marco Tronchetti Provera at the end of the press conference for the exhibit, during which there was also a video-interview of Umberto Eco, director of the Pirelli Foundation, conducted by Antonio Calabrò. About the exhibit, Umberto Eco said, “In this wholly intangible exhibit, one made of images, history and interpretation, we see not the portrait of fashion, but a portrait of the image of fashion. And in that we see the novelty in this presentation. […] As we have already said, there are no objects, just representations, so as to shift our focus from the tangible aspect of fashion to the level of dreams. Indeed, fashion evokes and produces dreams, especially now.”

More than 2,000 people attended the event, which reiterated just how much Pirelli’s history has been closely tied to Italian culture, society and the arts. And of course to technology, which, in its most innovative form, takes on shape and substance.