A book to be interpreted as a sort of anthropology of new ways of producing dispels the destructive myth of new production technologies

It is not true that industry 4.0 cancels out human work. And also, it is not true that everything will remain as it was. Just as for the first industrial revolution, and for subsequent revolutions thereafter, the reality lies in the midst of excesses. In short, once the debates on the future have run out of steam (maybe because they were conducted by those who had little to do with factories and offices), what’s left are precisely the factories and offices, and especially the men and women who work there and who play a role in a digital transformation which is now visible and consistent.As usual, to understand this, we need to explore the reality. And this is exactly what Annalisa Magone and Tatiana Mazali have done in “Il lavoro che serve. Persone nell’Industria 4.0” (Useful work. People in Industry 4.0), their latest literary work and piece of research which has just recently been published.

The book provides an insight into the reality of Industry 4.0 telling the tale of those enterprises that are interpreting this transformation with all its contradictory manifestations, in terms of management culture, organisational development, technological choices, the role of workers, regulatory models, and perceptions of trade unions. Therefore, genuine factories, and not made out of paper. Factories that have welcomed innovative technological solutions and that are faced with the problem of how to manage them; and also people (also genuine and not made out of paper), who have understood that the “machine 4.0” is necessary, but is not enough on its own.

So, as we said, reality. The book then unravels through true stories of factories and workers who were sought out, found and interviewed at a given historical moment (September 2017 and June 2018). This annotation is far from trivial, because the experience of Industry 4.0 and of the related work that never dies, changes from day to day, in keeping with its evolution.

To write this book, 131 people across 11 Italian regions were interviewed, for a duration of nearly one hundred hours in total, travelling the length and breadth of the country in a journey of 26,000 kilometres. A genuine field investigation, a sort of old-fashioned anthropological research, this research outlined a variegated and still uncertain horizon, inevitably exposed to adjustments and interpretations, even contradictory.On the other hand, this is what reality is like too: far from “textbook”.

The book coordinated by Magone and Mazali (the former a populariser, the latter a sociologist of cultural and communication processes), is divided into two parts; the first part contains the ten stories of ten people that outline as many paradigms of Industry 4.0; the second outlines the “digital grammar” first and then the “employment grammar” connected to the transformations under way. Another part voices a series of sectoral experts. The book concludes with an acute afterword by Guido Saracco, Rector of the Turin Polytechnic university, which makes everything perfectly clear from the title: “Ingegneri di nuova generazione” (Engineers of the new generation).

The message of the book is simple: Industry 4.0 is changing the way of producing as

a long and gradual wave, but the Italian way has a certain fact: people and their ability to grow businesses come first, each in their own role.

Il lavoro che serve. Persone nell’Industria 4.0 (Useful work. People in Industry 4.0)

Annalisa Magone, Tatiana Mazali

Guerini e Associati, 2018

The first Pirelli factory in Via Fabio Filzi was severely damaged by bombing in the summer of 1943. When the war was over, the reconstruction began and the company decided it needed a new administration centre. There were two options: they could either rearrange the headquarters in Viale Abruzzi, to which the offices had been relocated after the bombing, or they could construct a new building in the Brusada area between Via Fabio Filzi and Piazza Duca d’Aosta. Despite the fact that the Brusada option would cost more and the area available was decidedly smaller, other factors came into play when making the decision. Alberto Pirelli’s idea was to create a building with great personality, in an area that was of great symbolic value for the company: from the rubble of the historic factory would rise a tower that would be the tallest building in all Milan. As the papers in our Historical Archive relate, the Pirelli engineers Alberti and Loria, together with Giuseppe Valtolina, a consultant, were entrusted in 1950 with the preliminary phase of the project and, in 1952, the architect Gio Ponti was also brought in.

Ponti was known not only in Italy but also abroad and he had already designed important administration complexes, such as the one for Montecatini, also in Milan. The company’s choice of such a prestigious architect reflected the decidedly promotional nature that was a feature of the project right from the start. The tower, which was referred to by the British architectural critic Reyner Banham in 1961 as a perfect example of advertising architecture, was indeed a powerful means of promoting Pirelli’s image as a future-oriented company that was modern, progressive and internationalist, with a quintessentially Milanese spirit. It was the subject of a communication campaign that, in terms of extent and duration, was unparalleled even by the most eminent skyscrapers in New York, as Banham put it. This can be seen in a number of articles published by Edilizia Moderna, Domus, and Pirelli magazine, both before and during construction of the building, and also in many institutional advertisements that showed Pirelli products with views of the tower throughout the 1960s. In 1953, the Valtolina-Dell’Orto and Ponti-Fornaroli-Rosselli firms were commissioned to draft the executive plan, to oversee the works and to perform testing operations on the building. The final construction plans were ready at the end of 1954: a 127-metre, 31-storey reinforced concrete tower, with a broad ground plan in the middle gradually tapering at the ends until it almost closed at the tips. With the intervention of the engineers Pier Luigi Nervi and Arturo Danusso, who were called upon to design the reinforced concrete structure, the design was completed in 1956. The first stone of the skyscraper was officially laid on 12 July 1956 and from then on, the growth of the building, day after day, floor after floor, symbolised the pace at which Pirelli, Milan, and the whole country were developing in these years of the economic boom. It was an extraordinary construction site, adopting solutions that had never been tried before.

Every phase of the construction work, from the demolition of the Brusada to the completion of the tower, is documented in over 230 images now on our website. The photos were taken by Giorgio Calcagni, the photographer of Pirelli’s “Direzione Propaganda”, but also by the Publifoto agency and by well-known photographers such as Aldo Ballo and Giancarlo Scalfati. More photographs are now being added to those of the construction process in the online archive: over 390 pictures of the completed building and about 800 photos of its interiors, of the materials used for the cladding, and the fittings and furnishings. The interiors were designed by Gio Ponti in a way that would “relate to and continue the architecture”, giving a unified stylistic identity to all the settings and all the furnishings, in the “democratic” conviction that all the “inhabitants” of the building, from the company chairman to the employees, would have to live the same spaces.

Ponti’s design thus included the walls and floors, all of which were clad in Pirelli rubber and linoleum, as well as the doors, lifts, clocks, and lighting fixtures. And the furniture of course, which was designed mainly by Ponti and Alberto Rosselli: from the Arflex chairs to the tables, made by Rima in one version for office staff (with a linoleum top) and in another for directors (with a wooden top). Colour, which was particularly important for Ponti – as he himself says in “Everything in the World Must Be Brightly Coloured”, an article he wrote for Pirelli magazine in 1952 – was used as a “means of correcting the monotony and anonymity of the spaces” in the doors, which were clad in red linoleum, and on the floors, in “fantastic” yellow and black linoleum. The photographic shoots, made in 1960 with the building still almost empty, show the halls, corridors, offices, meeting rooms, toilets, cafeteria, data processing centre, and the 600-seat auditorium for conferences and events in the Pirelli Cultural Centre. The photos published also includes shoots by two great photographers, Gianfranco Corso and Enzo Nocera, who portrayed the Pirelli employees in the tower for reports on work published in 1974 and 1975 in the Fatti e Notizie house organ. These splendid shoots accompany us through the history of a building that has been a dominant feature of the skyline of the city of Milan for sixty years.

In our look at how the art of photography and the world of Pirelli have come together on many occasions, our “Stories” section has naturally examined the work of factory photographers. The opportunities offered by having the camera explore production departments and reveal them to the outside world were the subject of much debate in the second half of the twentieth century. Pages and pages devoted to “factory stories”, as seen through the eyes of the great photographers of the time, appeared, for example, in Pirelli magazine. Other documents in our Historical Archive also show how work and workers were captured by photographers’ lenses very early on.

Luca Comerio, Workers Leaving the Pirelli Factory in Milan, 1905: a name, a place, and a date that together form an authentic icon of the “world of Pirelli”. Now restored and preserved at our Foundation, the giant photograph was taken by the great Milanese filmmaker-photographer, who was commissioned by Pirelli to represent its industrial power at the Milan International world’s fair in 1906. More than two thousand faces of men and women outside the gates of the first factory in Via Ponte Seveso are shown looking up at a man armed with a camera and magnesium flash, who immortalises them as symbols of an industrial revolution in the making. In other words, a factory photograph as a tribute to a manufacturing force already in place. This is also the concept that inspires the photo reportage made inside the Bicocca workshops in 1922 to celebrate the Pirelli Group’s 50th anniversary. In the gigantic Farrel calendering machines from America subdued by men in overalls, and in the machines that dominate these sepia-coloured portraits, we can sense the full significance of the relationship between man and machine.

The post-war period and the 1950s introduced a new industrial renaissance, but the shots taken by the Dutch master Arno Hammacher, in the newly opened Pirelli tyre factory in Settimo Torinese, perfectly capture the concept of “know-how”. Here, hands take centre stage: hands that know the secrets of rubber, hands that control a vulcaniser, hands that can bend machines to the will of man. This culture is investigated in many articles that Pirelli magazine devoted to the mid-twentieth-century industrial boom, through its director at the time, the “poet-engineer” Leonardo Sinisgalli. Times change – from the industrial renaissance to the structural crises of the 1970s – but the inquisitiveness of photographers seeking the “human” side of the factory never varies: two young photographers, Enzo Nocera and Gianfranco Corso, made their own personal photo reportages for the company house organ Fatti e Notizie between 1973 and 1977. Strictly in black and white, they were authentic picture-investigations into the meaning of work, with all its contradictions, problems, and prospects. Their factory portraits also became solo exhibitions of a changing Italy.

And on the subject of changing factories, the view of another great poet of images cannot be neglected, for in 1985 Gabriele Basilico’s shoot – also in black and white – captured and forever preserved the moment when, with the official launch of the Bicocca Project, the Milano Bicocca district began its transformation into a new urban organism. This passion for telling the stories of people, factories, and work “from the inside” is still as alive as ever. Carlo Furgeri Gilbert has worked with the Pirelli Foundation ever since it was set up in 2008, creating photo reportages at its factories around the world, from the one in Breuburg, Germany, to those in İzmit, Turkey, and Slatina, Romania. A fine example is Furgeri Gilbert’s wide-ranging shoot that portrayed the creation of the new Industrial Centre in ​​Settimo Torinese, the Factory 4.0 of the future. Another story of the civilisation of men and machines.

The latest book from the Nobel prize-winner for economics discusses the strong links between learning, the economy and growth

A society grows and develops if it learns how to learn. This is also true for businesses, as it is for every individual. It is therefore appropriate to create the conditions under which such a mechanism can be built and made to function. At all levels. Something which is not easy, but which is still feasible. A cultural and social question of the first order, the creation of a learning society has been tackled by Joseph E.  Stiglitz  (Nobel prize-winner for economics) and Bruce C.  Greenwald in a book brimming with ideas yet which is nevertheless easy to read.

“Creating a learning society”, recently translated here in Italy, derives from a more complete and technical tome which the two authors wrote after a series of conferences held at Colombia University in honour of one of the greatest economists of the century: Kenneth J. Arrow. And the book published in Italy (created from a composition which has eliminated much of the technical terminology) retains all the refreshing aspects of the original’s conversational tone.

The idea at the basis of the discourse is that “if we can create a learning society, it would result in a more productive economy and a better standard of living”. This is the point of departure for the discourse, firstly around the theoretical bases for a learning economy, and then on the measures to be adopted for disseminating the ability to learn. The objective of economic policies, according to the two authors, is “to eliminate the divergence in knowledge, if you want to reduce the divergence in growth”. This is because an improvement in living standards derives from progress in technology and not from the accumulation of capital. It is a question of culture, then, rather than of technology. A condition which, if we examine things carefully, is at the foundations not only of a good society but also of well-balanced human and productive relationships. The book unfolds on the basis of these premises. Which also have a bearing on the conditions in developing countries which – precisely -, are growing at a speed which is a function of the speed with which they are succeeding in curtailing the divergences in knowledge compared with the rest of the world.

The book by Stiglitz and Greenwald leads its readers through the winding lanes of one of the most fascinating frontiers of economics. This is also true of how it affects businesses. One of the most crucial points of the whole thing, in fact, is “to plan a business which is able to learn and innovate”.  And which therefore is often managed on the basis of principles which are different from those customarily proposed by management generally. Here too, learning and innovation go hand in hand, alongside an evolution in manufacturing culture which is more open than before, more receptive to external demands and more readily in a position to seize the opportunities which flow from the social system in which the business is immersed. Indeed, in speaking about the organisation of production and of knowledge, Stiglitz and Greenwald deliver a fundamental assessment: “Whilst for the progress of society it is desirable that knowledge, once it has been created, should be handed on as much as possible over a wide range and in the most efficient manner, businesses which operate with a view to the maximisation of profit have always sought to limit such handing on as much as possible”. In summary, the question of learning also involves that of the social responsibility of business, of the role of a company within its locality and in the human system to which it belongs.

The book by Stiglitz and Greenwald – albeit a simplified version -, is not always extremely easy to read, but it constitutes one of the most important readings of current times to open our minds to the theme of the future: learning to learn. And within businesses too.

Creating a learning society. A new approach to growth, development and social progress

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Bruce C. Greenwald

Einaudi, 2018

The spread is a number, like the temperatures in the graph of a fever. They both indicate a condition of health: in the first case that of the debtor, whether this inspires confidence in the creditor or not; in the latter case, that of the sick. No sick person has ever been so irresponsible as to accuse the thermometer of “conspiracy”, but rather, alarmed precisely by those specific indications provided by the thermometer, (s)he has visited a good doctor, a competent and responsible person, one who was not elected by popular demand but chosen because (s)he is good, has completed the right studies, has the right scientific background and experience.

The comparison with the fever graph comes to mind, to those who deal in business culture, when faced with the latest controversies within the government with regard to the negative judgement of the financial markets and the concerns of the EU Commission on the “manoeuvre” announced with the Def (Document of economy and finance) and on the “breach” of the deficit/GDP ratio at 2.4%.

The spread between the Bund (the reliable German public securities) and the Italian BTP Treasury Bond has exceeded the value of 300. And the yield of public securities as at yesterday’s closing time, Monday 8 October, has exceeded 3.5%: this means that whoever buys them expects a greater “premium” for the risk they take by adding them to their portfolio. And the Italian Borsa stock exchange has had another black day (the “little figures” of falling indexes tell us how many “citizens”’ savings have gone up in smoke).

Within government circles, the reaction is to talk about international speculators who wish ill on Italy and once again “the real economy” is juxtaposed to “finance”. Or, to use another very fashionable slogan among the “gialloverdi” (yellow and green) in government, “the little figures” to “citizens”. Good small talk for propaganda. And not even original small talk. Years ago there was a minister who loved to joke and said he was in the business of local markets and not financial markets (he wasn’t fondly remembered). Reality, however, doesn’t like small talk and says much more. And facts and figures are stubborn.

The “little figures” on government securities say how much more interest needs to be paid for our huge and growing public debt (needs to be paid: by the State, i.e. all us “citizens” with our taxes). The “little figures” of the spread tell us just how much more we, again we “citizens”, will pay, for mortgages on our houses, for loans we have taken out either to get credit to try to grow our businesses and create jobs.

The “little figures” on growth announced by the government (1.5% in 2019 after a growth of 1.2% this year, but some of the ministers venture even 2% or even 3% within a couple of years) or on the forecast by authoritative economic leaders (1% Confcommercio, 0.9% Confindustria) indicate that there is a strong gap between expectations. And if those optimistic “little figures” are not confirmed, the consequence for “citizens” will be clear: less work, reduced wages, fewer public services, less welfare. All issues that affect the daily life of “citizens”.

We could go on forever. We shall stop here to say that attention to the “little figures” is a fundamental duty for any government which has the future of its citizens at heart.

Not by enumerating data at random, for reasons of electoral propaganda and political controversy. Nor by relying on the “magical power” of certain words (the “magic thought”, in contrast with reality, has been the source of some of the most tragic disasters of the twentieth Century). But processing and sharing choices that can be implemented. No solid economic development can be built by increasing the weight of debt. And no conscious public opinion, capable of approving and supporting brave reform choices, can be built without addressing the reality of things. The reality, not wishes or propaganda. Or with the illusions of a post on social media or the invention of the “enemy” (another gloomy 19th Century habit).

Figures, in short, that are certain, reliable, well studied and skilfully processed with scientific autonomy, explained well and clearly, are the basis of science, including economic science. Figures are at the heart of businesses (investment, work, salaries, accounting data which, in the balance sheets, indicate what to do and where to focus, how many instalments to pay for a new piece of machinery, how many market shares to acquire or defend). Family balance sheets are fuelled by figures. Figures to be humanised and not despised.

Figures are a foundation for good governance and, naturally, for solid, shared democracy. And for citizens to regain faith and security, it is truly indispensable for a dignified ruling class “not to lose track of figures”.

What life can be seen in photographs of cycling races! What passion there is in photographers chasing after and capturing expressions of total exhaustion! Just one old photo of a cyclist can often tell the story of a whole existence.

Snapshots taken – sometimes not without risk – on roads the world over. A history through photos devoted entirely to people and bicycles. Browsing through the “Bicycle Racing” photographic section of our website is like plunging into a world of ancient heroes, with handlebar moustaches and dusty tracks, faces filled with exhaustion or dogged defiance, where the great champions of cycling share the same fatigue and pain as men whose names are long forgotten, together with those of the photographers. In the early years of the twentieth century, there was often someone from the Strazza Photo Reportage agency in Milan: their stamp appears on some minor masterpieces, now in our Historical Archive. Like the brilliant photographic retouching of the cyclist Carlo Oriani, probably in the Parco Trotter in Milan after winning the Giro d’Italia in 1913. Then there is the unknown cyclist, in an unknown year, but once again by the famous photographer Strazza, who created this delightful “portrait of a cyclist wearing a Pirelli raincoat”. Wearing knickerbockers and a cloth cap, he is shown in front of the old Ambrogio Binda papermill in Milan. The Naviglio Pavese flows by behind him. We will never know what colour that bulky jacket was, nor will we ever know if he just happened to be there, or if he was actually posing. Two men who were certainly posing for Strazza were the Belgian brothers Lucien and Marcel, first and third respectively in the Six Hours of 1919. Between them is Valemberghe, second across the line – just to make sure, an anonymous hand has written their ranking directly on their jerseys.

Many of the photo shoots of cycling races from the 1930s to the 1950s were the work of Lauro Bordin. Born in 1890 in Crespino, in the province of Rovigo, Veneto, Bordin was himself an excellent cyclist. After retiring from racing in 1924, he became a photojournalist and turned his camera on his former “colleagues”. It was he who took the famous shot of two racing-car drivers, Tazio Nuvolari and Giuseppe Campari, battling it out on two wheels in 1932. Lauro Bordin also took the first photos of the Gran Premio Pirelli, the cycling tournament that became a springboard for many young champions in the 1950s.

This photographic cycling diary from our Historical Archive does not just look at racing, however. Just after the war, a number of shoots were made by such masters of photography as Federico Patellani and Milani, who looked at bicycles as an everyday means of transport and faithful travelling companions at a time when Italy was discovering the immense value of being able to move around freely. A cross-section of society that takes us into the “social media” of a century past.

As though it were the simplest question in the world: “So do you know Bartali? Do you know Coppi?” These are the opening words of “How I Know Gino and Fausto”, an article written by Orio Vergani for Pirelli magazine no. 4 of 1950, though he does say it is “a question that might sound silly to most people”. Because who wouldn’t know Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, at the height of that golden year of 1950? But then again, it is likely that not even those on first name terms with them, who followed them patiently hour after hour on the races, truly knew these cycling aces. Theirs was a silent profession and the reporter might get twenty words per race – if that – and just a couple of glances.

But Vergani was not one to give in: there must be a way to portray Gino and Fausto, the two athletes who at that moment were unquestionably the greatest stars of Italian cycling. And the great journalist of the Corriere della Sera would certainly manage to do so in some unconventional way, just as he had managed a few months earlier to immortalise Tazio Nuvolari, a legend of speed then in his twilight years. After all, a really in-depth, almost scientific examination of the two champions had already been written by Giuseppe Ambrosini in the same magazine, in issue no. 3 of 1949. In the article, Bartali and Coppi had been x-rayed down to the bone, and their psychology examined in the minutest detail.

Then there was the great Nino Nutrizio, who had been following their athletic feats for years, writing up meticulous diaries and going to spy on them, as it were, even when they were resting. So Vergani just had to come up with something original to paint a new picture of the two champions. When he wrote about them that summer, in 1950, he had known Bartali for at least fifteen years. He was “the human locomotive” but without the ability to pounce. His talent emerged in long, gruelling rides, “as powerful as a November downpour and as black as a summer storm”. A talent that had Bartali say, when he was way behind his opponent Louison Bobet on the Tour de France in 1948, “the Tour ends in Paris”. And indeed it was the Italian who won the race, making history with his perseverance in the face of impossible odds. Fausto Coppi, on the other hand, was “the man who bears the weight and responsibility of being the most phenomenal athlete I’ve ever seen since Binda”, wrote the great veteran of sports interviews, Orio Vergani. Coppi was a phenomenon and he knew it, but he would have preferred not to be. Melancholy, uncertainty, and the burden of responsibility were the features of his life. In Vergani’s account, Bartali is as easy and open as a man can be, while Coppi is as enigmatic as Superman. Vergani compares one to Ulysses – the irascible patient born of mortals – and the other to Achilles, the offspring of the gods wishing to divest himself of his divine gifts. Yes, everyone, absolutely everyone knew “Gino and Fausto” in that summer of 1950. But possibly no one as well as Orio Vergani.

Opening up the factories. Making them visible to citizens, to students, to those who live in industrial areas and to all those who have only ever heard stories about them (and often poor ones, with negative features). And bringing them to life, for one day, in public, for what they are: positive places for work and personal relationships, where production machinery and research laboratories live side by side, hi-tech robots alongside lathes belonging to the ancient mechanical tradition, computers alongside equipment used by highly-skilled manual artisans, canteens alongside libraries. Factories which speak about hard work and invention, remuneration and well-being, often contrasting interests and social inclusion (people grow up, in a factory, and build their careers very often based on merit and ability, independently of any personal characteristics of race, culture, religion, gender or beliefs). Factories, civil places. In an Italy which, notwithstanding the crisis, remains the second-ranking manufacturing country in Europe, immediately after Germany: a record which is to be applauded and reinforced.

“Open factories” is a clever initiative which was initiated years ago at Federchimica (it allowed thousands of Italians to understand that the chemical industry is altogether different from something dirty, dangerous and polluting, but rather is a leading player for the right sort of sustainable economic development, including from an environmental perspective). And, over time, there have been several industries from the Veneto, Piedmont and Lombardy regions which have dedicated a major commitment to “open factories”. Many companies now hold an “Open Day”, when the plants and offices are open to the relatives and children of employees.

Now, in Milan, we have the launch of “Open production facilities”, on the initiative of the City Council and with the collaboration of seventy businesses, including industrial companies, laboratories, workshops and artisanal boutiques, makerspaces, scientific museums, research centres and “Fab Labs”: on 29th September will be held “a day of guided tours, workshops and meetings designed to discover the places where they make the objects which are highly sought after throughout the world under the “made in Italy” banner. An appointment conceived and desired by the Milan City Council with a view to bringing its citizens, youngsters and students closer to the old and new ways of manufacturing whilst at the same time highlighting the value of the great wealth of artisanal knowledge of yesterday and today which is present in this city”.

The assessment is by Cristina Tajani, councillor for Policies for Work, Productive activities, Trade, Fashion and Design. Who insists: “It is important, for the people of Milan, to see what happens behind the scenes of an industrial or artisanal creation. And for us administrators this constitutes a building block for the “Milan Manufacturing” programme which is intended to incentivise a return of “light manufacturing” to the city, with the objective of regenerating decommissioned areas and creating good jobs, allowing so many youngsters to transform their own creativity into ideas, projects and objects thanks to the ever wider use of new technologies, from 3D printers to laser cutters which render the creation of prototypes simpler and more economical”.

What shall we be able to see, in the seventy places where they “make things, and make them well”, in the factories, large and small, in which that type of entrepreneurship so typical of the history and current affairs of Milan is flourishing? Councillor Tajani explains: “From the laboratory which makes hats for the English royals to the factory which creates aluminium guitars for rock idols such as Lou Reed and Ben Harper, via the Pirelli laboratories where they create those legendary Formula 1 tyres, across to the mechanical workshop where they build by hand and with the assistance of new 3D printers the components needed to bring life back to classical one-off models, or discovering the secrets of the bookbinder’s art or how a ring is created in a goldsmith’s laboratory or how a pair of hand-made shoes is made”.

The full list of participants in the event can be found at www.manifattura.milano.it. Here at Pirelli, in particular, the programme for 29th September includes guided tours of the laboratories for research, development and experimentation in the Bicocca Headquarters, where it will be possible to see how a prototype tyre is created, by combining innovative technologies with manual expertise, and to witness several tests among those used by Pirelli to develop road and racing tyres. An Italian level of excellence of international value.

Milan, the greater Milan of the whole metropolitan area, undergoing a transformation into a smart city on a global scale, is still an industrial city, in which manufacturing accounts for 29% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), much more in fact than the national average (17%) but also more than the German average (22%). And this is manufacturing undergoing major change, at the heart of a true digital turning point for the economy, according to the criteria of “Industry 4.0”: manufacturing is combining with hi-tech services, sophisticated production capabilities are improving their own competitiveness thanks to a robust contribution from research centres, industrial competencies are being reinforced thanks to the support of the “knowledge economy” strengthened by universities (the Polytechnic university, Bocconi, Cattolica, Statale, Bicocca, Humanitas) which are achieving notable rankings among the best international centres for training and research. The mechanical sector is becoming the mechatronic sector, we are achieving high levels of productivity in rubber and plastics, automotive, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, life sciences and indeed in the traditional “Made in Italy” sectors – clothing and fashion, furnishings and the food and agriculture industry. Industrial Milan means avant-garde modernity and the possibility of a good future.

Stefano Micelli, an economist who is attentive to all the phenomena of “Industry 4.0”, and chair of the Milan Manufacturing Advisory Board, maintains: “Visiting workplaces and manufacturing sites allows people to discover the vitality and quality of the many businesses and artisanal workers that give life to the city of Milan. The purpose of the event is to create an ever greater awareness about the economic and cultural wealth which these activities represent and to underline their growth potential. The initiative is aimed especially at those youngsters who are looking for job opportunities at the current time: the manufacturing sector which is active in the city needs their talent in order to develop design and technological innovation”.

Culture, technology, economic development. As is explained by Marco Taisch, Scientific Chairman of the “World Manufacturing Forum” (the Foundation which promotes it is a prime example of collaboration between businesses, the academic world, institutions and the associative world in order to cultivate and disseminate culture across the manufacturing sector): “Manufacturing is the primary generator of wealth and social equilibrium, as a means to the further development of advanced economies and also as a fundamental tool for the growth of less developed areas of the world”. The Annual Meeting in Cernobbio of the “World Manufacturing Forum”, programmed for 27th and 28th September (in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, the Assolombarda association, the Confartigianato artisan confederation, ANCE and a series of other business and research organisations), will attempt to “determine and influence, at a European and global level, scenarios for the future, by looking into the significance of the innovations which from the manufacturer will also have an impact on services as well as on people’s lives. For these reasons, the twinning of “Open production facilities” and the WMF constitutes a natural partnership based on the sharing of objectives to be achieved together through the exploitation and development of urban and regional manufacturing in an international perspective”.

Especially on Pirelli’s part, there is particular attention placed on the connections between manufacturing and digital processes. The whole Group has for many years followed the processes which lead in this direction, in the context of a “polytechnical culture” which interprets innovation as a general commitment which links together products, productive processes, materials, industrial relations, and the languages of research, of marketing and of communication. And significant indications of this can also be found in a document which brings together company results and indicative forecasts: the Consolidated Accounts 2017.

Pirelli’s digital transformation, in the Accounts, is set alongside five stories of “artisans 4.0” who have taken advantage of digital transformation to find the key to increasing their own activities (we shall discuss these in more detail shortly).And the heading is exemplary: “Data meets passion”, to confirm and re-launch the company’s tradition of explaining the accounts over and above the numbers by referring to art and literature. On this occasion the artistic and cultural contributions, in order to show how the digital world radically changes cultures and customs within society and within individuals, are those of the artist Emiliano Ponzi and of three writers of international renown: Mohsin Hamid, Tom McCarty and Ted Chiang. And these are the stories of the five digital artists, with business ideas reinforced by advanced technological models: the “3Bee” (a hi-tech beehive which, through sensors, monitors the entire production cycle of the hive including remotely), “Alter Ego” (thanks to 3D software it produces ecologically sustainable made-to-measure surf boards), “Demeter.life” (by utilising blockchain technology a direct relationship is established between consumers and farmers throughout the world in order to improve sustainable crops), the “Druetta Upholstery” (the re-launch of the family business using 3D planning and virtual rooms for the design of made-to-measure furnishings) and “Differenthood” (an on-line platform where, based on 5 thousand fabrics and with over 1 billion possible combinations, people can create garments which are unique and 100% Made in Italy, and which can then be shared with the community).

There is then, in the Pirelli Consolidated Accounts 2017, alongside the company data, a general indication about the values of “making things”, in the digital world. And there is the story-telling. With strong literary and political implications. As Tom McCarthy confirms: “within the rise of the digital culture…. it is politics which becomes a literary matter. Literary in the sense that public life – and private life – finds itself governed by its own transcription: when everything is noted down in a register of some sort, then experience as such, and with it the problem of free will (are we masters of ourselves? Or are all our actions and our decisions governed and decided by algorithms?), is reduced to instances and acts of scripture”.

The summary? Open production facilities, precisely. And words to continue to make them live on.

A book that tackles tomorrow from a philosophical perspective has just been published

You need to have an idea of the future. To have a goal to achieve, objectives to accomplish. And you also have to use tools for the interpretation of reality that can lead to a correct vision of what will happen. You need a philosophy that leads to the future without illusions. This is also – and especially – true for companies.

Reading “Filosofia del futuro. Un’introduzione” (Philosophy of the future. An introduction) by Samuele Iaquinto and Giuliano Torrengo (both from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Milan), is therefore a good thing to do for more or less everyone; even for managers and entrepreneurs.

The book offers an introduction – which is both accessible and meticulous – to the most recent developments of a fundamental branch of current philosophy: the philosophy of the future, precisely. The attention is focused on the key questions of the contemporary debate. Has the future already been written or there are alternative paths that time may be able to take? Does existing simply mean being present or are there genuine real future objects? Are we truly free to choose what actions to take and to change the course of events? These questions can be transposed from an individual plane to the multiple planes of business activities. And the answers to which get progressively more complex. Starting with their own philosophical interpretation.  The debate around these issues, in fact, explores an area of intersection between metaphysics, logic and ethics, and involves different disciplines such as physics, psychology and economics. Every aspect is reflected in the actual layout of the book which takes into consideration in sequence: metaphysics, logic, travelling and the ethics of the future.

“Filosofia del futuro” is not a book that explores fashionable arguments, but a tool better to understand what is happening around human activities and then attempt to be better prepared for tomorrow.

Filosofia del futuro. Un’introduzione (Philosophy of the future. An introduction)

Samuele Iaquinto, Giuliano Torrengo

Raffaello Cortina Editore, 2018

Autumn 2018 brings events to promote corporate culture coupled with celebrations to mark the tenth anniversary of our Foundation.

On 13 July, we reopened the doors of the Foundation to Bicocca racconta (The Story of Bicocca), an initiative that will continue with three new events on 28 September, 5 October and 15 November, promoted together with the University of Milano-Bicocca and celebrating a double anniversary: the 10th anniversary of the Foundation and the 20th of the Milanese university. The experience will introduce visitors not only to the company’s historical heritage, which is preserved by the Pirelli Foundation, but also to some of the buildings on the university campus. Visitors will follow the story of how urban transformation turned the Bicocca district from a place that manufactured products to one that now manufactures ideas.

There are also many new features in the Pirelli Foudation’s 2018/19 educational programme: children and young people will be able to examine how companies use very topical issues such as corporate welfare, multiculturalism, and sustainability as levers of competitiveness. At the centre of the new programme is the history of visual communication, with top-name designs and global campaigns from the 1970s to the early 2000s. These will be shown in video screenings and in the archive materials currently on display in the new exhibition at the Foundation.

During this month of September, the new exhibition, and the huge collection of Pirelli audio-visual materials, with hundreds of movies on film and magnetic tape dating back as far as 1912, were also the subject of guided tours put on during the first Milano Movie Week, an initiative promoted and coordinated by the City of Milan. The week – from 14 to 21 September – with a programme of events in different places, involved all those who work with cinema in Milan: cinemas, festivals, cinema schools, production companies, organisations and associations, and all the leading names in the city’s cultural scene.

On 20 October we shall once again open the doors of the Foundation, this time to the Archivi Aperti (Open Archives) event promoted by Rete Fotografia, now in its fourth edition, which this year looks at photography in Italy in the 1960s. Visitors will have access to a wide range of documents from the Pirelli Photographic Archive: including over 5,000 published and unpublished photos produced by great masters such as Ugo Mulas, Arno Hammacher, Fulvio Roiter, Enzo Sellerio and Mario De Biasi, from the archive section devoted to Pirelli. Rivista d’informazione e di tenica magazine.

Lastly, in November we shall be putting on guided tours at the 17th Settimana della Cultura d’impresa (Corporate Culture Week), promoted by Confindustria, which will have “Industrial culture” as its theme. Close collaboration continues with all the cultural institutions that work to promote Italy’s historical and artistic heritage.