The short film “We Are”, a Pirelli Foundation project written and directed by Mattia Colombo and Davide Fois, curated by Francesca Molteni and produced by Muse Factory of Projects, will be previewed as part of the Visioni dal Mondo Festival. The 9th International Documentary Festival, initiated and produced by Francesco Bizzarri with the artistic direction of Maurizio Nichetti, will be held in Milan from Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 September 2023.

The short film, which runs for approximately 7 minutes, is available in both English and Italian and uses the artistic language of the cinema to illustrate the corporate culture of Pirelli, which it portrays as a “stage for the arts and technology”. A story in pictures, it is inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo, examining aspects of corporate culture that range from theatre, music and art to research and innovation, highlighting the fundamental combination of artistic and scientific creativity that has always defined Pirelli’s corporate identity.

The protagonists of the film follow one another in a collective performance, in which the common thread is a circular beam of light that illuminates various scenes and settings, giving the idea of a theatrical setting even in places that have little to do with artistic performances. The follow spot thus comes to rest on an actor or a violinist, or on a scale model of the Pirellone created by a model maker, but also on technicians and engineers engrossed in rigorous studies, research and tyre testing. The camera moves from the historic stage of the Piccolo Teatro Grassi in Milan to The Seven Heavenly Palaces by the German artist Ansel Kiefer, a permanent site-specific installation at Pirelli HangarBicocca. It shifts from the Research and Development laboratories to the Historical Archive of the Pirelli Foundation, a heritage protected on more than 4 kilometres of shelving at the heart of the company headquarters. To remind us that “We Are” business, memory, and future.

Watch the trailer here

Does the future belong to metropolises, or even megalopolises? Or, rather, to old provincial towns, with their artistic treasures and peaceful settings? Or to the so-called “city-states” – powerful, rich, fast-paced, attracting talent and innovation? Or to networks made of medium-size cities, invigorated by interlinked industries, skills, and human relations more attuned to a good quality of life for all? These are the questions recurring in this end-of-summer public debate, also thanks to a pointed investigation by Corriere della Sera’s Paolo Coccorese on the future of Turin as we approach 2050 and thus also on its ties with Milan above all, but also with Genoa or Bologna, its surrounding valleys’ territories and the other Piedmontese provinces looking for a new identity and new prospectives now that Fiat’s industrial hegemony has come to an end.

Carlo Ratti contributes some food for thought. Strong of his Turin roots (his Italian architecture firm is actually based in Turin, on Corso Quintino Sella, in his grandfather’s ancient villa) and extensive international experience (a teaching post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and a leading role at MIT’s Senseable City Lab, which researches the impact of digital technologies on architecture, design and urban space planning), his argument is that, “The future of Turin is Milan, the only global city in Italy. We need to push towards an integration of the two metropolitan hubs”, while also taking into consideration a post-industrial future and its connections with another first-rate metropolitan system, Bologna. Urban planners, sociologists, politicians, corporate and cultural figures are joining in on a discussion that, albeit inspiring, remains an open debate on tradition vs innovation that could also be expanded to address other metropolitan systems across Italy.

As such, we should take this opportunity to further explore some of the issues concerning the “urban question”. Avoiding, however, platitudes, small-mindedness, the nostalgia of “the good old days” (Guido Gozzano’s ironic comment – “good things in bad taste” – inevitably comes to mind when talking about Turin) and wishful thoughts about a tourism-focused future: Italian cities, though abundant in artistic and architectural treasures, won’t be able to survive on tourism and events only. And let’s not ignore the danger of so-called overtourism (selfie-obsessed, sandal-wearing crowds invading Venice and Florence, Milan and Rome, Naples and Turin…), as well as the ephemeral nature of “great events” that harm the environment and bring no tangible benefits in the long term.

What should we be looking forward to, then? In his latest book, Urbanità/Un viaggio in quattordici città per scoprire l’urbanistica (Urbanity/An exploration journey through the urban planning of fourteen cities, published by Einaudi), Ratti argues that “the universal urban” is composed by various fragments assembled together, and points out how diversity is indeed an extraordinary form of wealth – diverse cultures, vocations, attitudes, historical roots and a future-oriented attitude.

A much-needed review of the new geo-economic maps, then, calls for a redefinition of urban and metropolitan relationships based, for instance, on the ongoing integration of productive systems, meant in the broadest sense. This is rather obvious when thinking about the so-called “A1/A4 mega region”, so nicknamed for the two motorways it surrounds, extending from the Piedmont region to the north-east of Italy and including the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions, spanning over the dense network of industrial production chains (feeding the automotive, mechatronics and robotics, pharmaceutical, chemical, rubber, aerospace, shipbuilding, agri-food, furnishing, clothing industries and so on), as well as financial businesses (Intesa Sanpaolo, Unicredit, BPM, Generali and UnipolSai), universities, research, training and logistics centres, and a complex network of high-tech hubs.

It’s an economic map representing the entrepreneurial, cultural and social interconnections that will held up well against the new millennium’s crises and that have already met the challenges engendered by the so-called environmental and digital twin transition and the evolution of data-driven enterprises, in our controversial times marked by the incredibly fast spread of Artificial Intelligence. Indeed, this has already significantly contributed to the growth of Italy’s GDP, the best in Europe from 2022 to today.

Interrelated relations that highlight the bonds between great and prestigious academic institutions (universities and polytechnic universities in Turin and Milan) as well as those abounding with educational skills, dotted throughout the most dynamic provinces, from the north-west of Italy to the Emilia-Romagna region and the north-east. And they also emphasise social and cultural ties, existing within collaborations built on solidarity and competitiveness between their major actors, that is, banking foundations and public-sector structures and associations.

What are the main traits of this map? It illustrates the enduring relationships between metropolitan areas (Milan, Turin, Bologna, Genoa, Venice/Mestre/Padua/Treviso), medium-sized cities and productive provinces, and it also reveals what Aldo Bonomi, a sociologist attentive to urban evolutions, terms “the metamorphosis of medium-sized cities”, amid “neo-municipalism” and “network capitalism”, promoting trends for industrial growth that, over time and accelerated by the need for international competitiveness, have conquered their own space and credibility around the world.

Stefano Micelli has analysed unique phenomena such as the rapid evolution of enterprises in the north-east – high-quality crafts businesses that have been swiftly integrated within international supply chains and are now well-equipped to play a prominent role in the ongoing backshoring process, i.e. a return to placing industrial production close to the outlet markets, meaning the national and European markets. Businesses that are socially responsible and care for environmental and social sustainability, intended not as a “decorative frill” or a clever communication and marketing ruse, but as a genuine transformational process in manufacturing as well as a competitive asset (Symbola’s analyses and the presence of several Italian enterprises at the top of international sustainability indexes are concrete evidence of this).

What we’re talking about, then, is a map representing a unique European context, and if carefully taken into account it could assist national and local decision makers in defining new industrial and fiscal policies (aimed at stimulating innovative projects) and better choices related to the service industry, investments in infrastructures, and so on. This would result in clear and forward-looking decisions for the benefit of the country and of new generations – and as such their nature must necessarily widely differ from those corporate, populist and protectionist lures that, unfortunately, still take up too much room in public debate.

What should the future look like, then? “We need to expand the territories, think bigger in terms of economic, social and civic relationships,” concludes Beppe Sala, mayor of Milan. This is it – “expand the territories”, and ambitiously plan for the future, breaking free from insular constraints and the delusions of the “happy degrowth”. And more – projects should be adapted to better reap the benefits from the production and social boons clearly visible on this map.

The “MiToGeno” project, aimed at relaunching the north-west of Italy and promoted by entrepreneurial associations Unione Industriali di Torino (Industrial Union of Turin), Assolombarda and Confindustria Genova (as mentioned in our blog from 1 August) is a case in point, just as the commitment shown by the Centro Studi Grande Milano is – an association focused on forging close relationships with the mayors of Genoa, Bergamo, Turin, Brescia and, soon, with those of cities in the Emilia-Romagna region and the north-east of Italy. An attempt to strengthen the relationships between public and private sectors that would bring fresh meaning to the words that great historian Carlo M. Cipolla used to describe the positive outlook of Italian makers, their will “to produce beautiful things that the world likes in the shadow of bell towers.”

(photo Getty Images)

Teaching the values of commitment and task sharing in production organisations to promote well-being and competitiveness

Resigning and giving up work, or the ‘Great Resignation’ phenomenon, is a growing and increasingly widespread issue (at least in certain sectors) that is engendering new questions we need to tackle, in terms of corporate and work cultures, too. This is the topic explored by Fabrizio d’Aniello in his article “Giovani e cultura pedagogica del lavoro” (“Young people and work-related pedagogic culture”), recently published in the SIPeGeS (the Italian Society of General and Social Pedagogy) bulletin.

The author begins with an observation: the ‘Great Resignation’ phenomenon has highlighted various symptoms of a widespread work-related malaise – something that we need to understand and handled, and that also concerns the field of work-related pedagogy. In fact, such desertion of the workplace demands a review of how work-related education is taught and the need to revise, rediscuss and update it – starting with young people.

The first goal, then, is teaching them how to work, and above all how to work well. A crucial stage according to d’Aniello, who believes that most circumstances are affected by a neglect of human relationships, a key factor that highlights the need to expose and “report” – and discard where required – the neoliberal focus on individual performance and performative competitiveness, as too much competitiveness, too much stress and too much dehumanisation may lie behind the ‘Great Resignation’ phenomenon.

What should be done then? The article by d’Aniello aims to promote teaching young people about a work-related pedagogic culture based on the significance of relationships, as well as providing them with useful advice on how to deal with modern-day issues. Hence, the author believes that this should be learned early and proceeds to identify the (virtuous) relationships between the new and future workforce, education and work-related pedagogy, before examining the issues affecting current work conditions and, lastly, outlining more effective pedagogic pathways.

Fabrizio d’Aniello’s analysis not only helps us better understand an increasingly widespread phenomenon, but also contributes to truly enhance, expand and disseminate what we know about “working well”. Thus, promoting commitment and task sharing through education may genuinely boost well-being and competitiveness.

Giovani e cultura pedagogica del lavoro (“Young people and work-related pedagogic culture”)

Fabrizio d’Aniello (University of Macerata)

Cultura pedagogica e scenari educativi, 1(1), 94-99, June 2023

A book full of suggestions offers a different method to better manage a company

A philosophical theory on how to better, or best, govern a company. An important topic – essential, actually, considering our digital world – that Emanuele Sacerdote tackles in his latest literary effort. Indeed, Filosofia per l’impresa (Corporate philosophy) is based on a seemingly simple, though actually rather complex, concept: the philosophical thoughts of illustrious wise thinkers – such as Socrates, Aristoteles, Bacon, Descartes, Hegel, Schopnhauer, Husserls, Popper – could enrich and strengthen the strategic governance of enterprises by enhancing the governability and boosting the potential for progress in production organisations.

Sacerdote begins by observing that corporate management entails a “dominant” concept set on strengthening its own strategies by increasing awareness, foresight, realism stance and conciseness to promote better results. This all sounds fine, but it is not sufficient, as according to Sacerdote we also need a “propositional” concept advocating the need for a new “pre-strategic cycle” whose methodological quintessence consists in a path based on deductive reasoning, a critical approach and factual analysis.

In order to illustrate all this, the author leads readers along a similarly simple and linear path that focuses upon the need to enhance a company’s governability, a focus on philosophy as a pre-strategic tool, advice on how to “implement” the proposed method and a number of practical applications that can be used as examples.

Reading Sacerdote means venturing into a very different world than that of mere (and boring) classic corporate strategy – a more complex and interesting world that is certainly worth discovering and exploring.

Filosofia per l’impresa (Corporate philosophy)

Emanuele Sacerdote

Il Sole 24 Ore, 2023

The evening of the Awards Ceremony for the winners of the 2023 Premio Campiello is fast approaching. Once again, it is supported by Pirelli, which is steadfast in its commitment to promoting reading. The final, which will be held on Saturday 16 September, at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, will be presented by Francesca Fialdini and Lodo Guenzi, and broadcast live on Rai 5 television.

As in recent years, the Pirelli Foundation has invited the five finalist writers to record video interviews in which they talk about their books. Avid readers will thus be able to learn more about the protagonists of this sixty-first edition of the prestigious literary award, while eagerly waiting for the name of the winner to be revealed.

The five finalists will tell us about their works with one interview a day for a week, from today until Friday 15 September. We will hear about the biography of Joyce Lussu, one of the most revolutionary and fascinating personalities of the Resistance and of twentieth-century Italy; a novel in which the protagonist confronts her own desires and seeks spaces in which to express them; an essay that reconstructs the role of women during the resistance to Nazi-Fascism; a book that combines prose and poetry, in which strange travellers traverse the Mediterranean in search of an ancient, untamed deity; and a diary chronicling a summer meandering around Rome, remembering the life of Ennio Flaiano.

The complete programme of videos that will be available on the fondazionepirelli.org website is as follows:

Monday 11 September 2023: Silvia Ballestra – La Sibilla (Laterza)

Tuesday 12 September 2023: Marta Cai – Centomilioni (Einaudi)

Wednesday 13 September 2023: Tommaso Pincio – Diario di un’estate marziana (Perrone)

Thursday 14 September 2023: Benedetta Tobagi – La resistenza delle donne (Einaudi)

Friday 15 September 2023: Filippo Tuena – In cerca di Pan (Nottetempo)

Enjoy the show – and the read!

The Pirelli Foundation

In 1956 Pirelli left Formula One and devoted all its resources and energy to the study and production of the Cinturato tyre. The following year, Stirling Moss won the Italian Grand Prix on the last Stelvio Corsa tyres that remained in stock. When Pirelli returned to the Championship in the 1980s, first the Cinturato and then the P Zero took Formula 1 by storm. The era of the Stelvio and of the Stella Bianca appeared to have come to an end. Or maybe not… In 2018, the Milano-San Remo was dominated by the stars, Pirelli and Ferrari. Spurred into action by the Prancing Horse, Pirelli brought the legendary Stelvio Corsa back to the market in its “Collezione” line exclusively for the Ferrari 250 GTO, which was developed to compete in the Gran Turismo category. Two sizes were made available: the 215/70 R15 98W for the front and the 225/70 R15 100W for the rear. No other size was planned, and no other car can fit this Stelvio Corsa. In other words, it was “the” tyre created solely for the Ferrari 250 GTO.

This new blend of tradition and modernity started out from technical drawings that were provided by the Pirelli Foundation from its Historical Archive, and it received its trial by fire in the Ligurian race. Aesthetically identical to the “Record-Breaker” tyre but now with the most advanced systems used in motorsport, the Stelvio Corsa of the new millennium pays the closest attention to the environment as well as to safety, while losing none of its original flair. Yesterday, like today, the result is a blend of excellence in terms of performance and authenticity and it is one that strengthens the bond between Ferrari and Pirelli, on both track and road.

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It was in 1981 that Pirelli made its return to Formula One, with Toleman, after twenty-five years away. It had spent those years researching radials and testing them on dirt tracks in rally races. The Long P now equipped Alfa Romeo, BMW, Citroën, Fiat, Ford, Mitsubishi, Opel, Peugeot, Subaru and Toyota. But it was with Lancia that the turning point had come just a few years previously, when the Stratos took to the track in the World Rally Championship in 1974. The car was so powerful that Pirelli had to create a new project, the P7, the precursor to the quintessential high-performance tyre – the P Zero, a symbol of absolute perfection. This was to be the tyre that, more than any other, would affect every area of motorsport, from Formula One to rallying, to GT and the famous road races, as well as the endurance contests with the Ferrari F40 LM at Le Mans. Experimentally introduced in 1984, the P Zero hit the roads in late 1985, and in early 1986 it was fitted on another Lancia, the Delta S4 racing version, which immediately made its mark with a long sequence of successes and victories. This came in 1986, and Ferrari and Pirelli once again started making history together.

At Maranello the following year, the Prancing Horse officially unveiled the F40, which to all intents and purposes was a road car but its true vocation was clearly sporty. With a top speed of 320 km/h it needed tyres that could offer comfort, superb performance, efficiency and grip on dry and wet, on both straights and corners. In other words, it needed the P Zero. As it had already done with the Stelvio, the Long P specially created two sizes (245/40 ZR 17 for the front and 335/35 ZR 17 for the rea) for the Scuderia. Not long after this, all car manufacturers started requesting custom-made tyres. The P Zero family took shape as the result of the constant evolution of tyres of sports cars adapted to different needs. In 1988 Lamborghini became part of the “P Zero racing stable” when it chose the ultra-high performance tyre for its Countach Anniversary, which celebrated the twenty-fifth birthday of the Raging Bull company, making it the star in a short television communication masterpiece, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Its use off road, however, is but a small part, however prestigious, of what the P Zero can do.

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The year is 1953. A Ferrari 500 with Pirelli tyres flashes by at 200 km/h on the Monza track. Alberto Ascari is at the wheel, preparing to conquer an overwhelming double victory. Hurtling round beneath him, however, are not the “Victory Tyres”, but a new model that the Long P has developed exclusively for the new car designed by Ferrari solely for racing and launched on this Formula One Championship season. The tyres are known as Stelvio Corsa.

Motorcar racing in the 1950s and 1960s was dominated by the Stella Bianca Corsa, which became the number one choice for the top car manufacturers Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, and Maserati. However, these were also the post-war years – the years of the Reconstruction, of Pirelli beginning to focus on mass mobility and celebrating the various Alpine passes with a new range of products. These were the Rolle, Sempione and, as we have seen, the Stelvio. The last of these immediately earned the moniker as the “Record-Breaker”, taking Ascari to victory in the 1952 Italian Grand Prix and winning the Formula One title that year, both for himself and for Ferrari. A success that was repeated the following year, in 1953, and that led to a whole slew of victories and new products that were more powerful and with even greater performance. In terms of successes on the racetrack, however, the new tyres were never able to outclass the Stelvio, which also took Maurice Trintignant and Froilàn Gonzales to victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

What made the difference, both on and off the track, was technology. In the road model, the tread, which consisted of pentagonal blocks linked together lengthwise, marked the shift from a sculpted to a striped design. With improved road holding and low noise, it used not just natural rubber but also various types of synthetic rubber and rayon plus nylon in the carcass. The racing version, on the other hand, kept the tread in natural rubber and adopted a design with transversal cuts for wet conditions and a different percentage of carbon black in the compounds to help improve resistance and prevent deformation. Races, of course, but also advanced technologies and industrial developments that were taken from racing circuits to everyday cars, in the most authentic Pirelli tradition of combining research for racing with applications for the market. The Topolino was fitted with the Stella Bianca and the Fiat 600 with the Rolle, while the Mini and the Fiat 500 took the Cinturato CN54, which was derived directly from the experience in rallying.

The Stella Bianca, Rolle, Sempione, Stelvio, and Cinturato immediately made the history of both Italian mobility and of motorcar racing, and all shared a passion for challenges both on and off the circuits.

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A sense of passion is something that can be found in all of Pirelli’s communication campaigns under the direction of Leonardo Sinisgalli. At a historic time, when motorisation was growing exponentially, the company placed its bets not only on manufacturing increasingly advanced tyres but also on promoting them by bringing in artists and intellectuals who could create a new communication strategy for newsprint, posters, cinema, and direct advertising. The so-called Direzione Propaganda worked across the board to tell the story of the latest models of tyres launched on the market for all manner of vehicles, seasons and driving conditions. To achieve this, Ezio Bonini and Pavel Michael Engelmann’s graphic works were joined by those of Franco Grignani and many other talented artists.

In 1951, Bonini’s Quanti calcoli fa la natura (“How many calculations nature does”) series starts from ideas put forwards by Leonardo Sinisgalli and uses pictures of molluscs, stars and crystals as metaphors for the engineering work (molecules, geometric sequences, genetic sediments) needed to produce a shell, a crustacean or… a Stelvio. The perfect shapes created by nature around us are as amazing as the admiration we feel when we see the way tread patterns are created not by the hand of nature, but by the skills and precision of men and machines. Different visions and forms of creativity enriched Pirelli’s visual communication and helped create the company’s unmistakable style over the decades. In 1952, Pagot Film celebrated the Stelvio in an award-winning animated short in colour entitled Novità al Salone Internazionale dell’Auto di Torino [“News from the Turin Car Show”] directed by Nino and Toni Pagot. In 1956, Franco Grignani created a campaign devoted to travelling. Highly evocative in terms of its landscapes, it offered a new, original take on the technique of collage, highlighting the three key qualities of the Stelvio: flexibility, durability and road holding.

But a more “classic” approach still persisted, as we see in the Sicurezza nella velocità [“Safety at speed!”] campaign by Pavel Engelmann, which followed the evolution of racing tyres from the Stella Bianca to the Stelvio between 1952 and 1954. Here, the dominant colour was the same shade of red that the Futurist Roowy had used forty years previously. Pirelli’s communication also received major awards from a number of international juries – including the Palme d’Or for Advertising, which it won in 1953, and other important honours for its graphic art. What really mattered for the company, however, was the customers’ approval. And this was ensured by Armando Testa and the Artiglia l’asfalto [Claws the Asphalt] poster. The idea of turning the tyre into the mane of a lion, immediately brought to mind the key characteristics of the product: power, grip, and elegance. All in a single minimalist image.

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In 1932 Pirelli launched Supersport – an entire range of racing tyres. The forerunner? None other than the Stella Bianca, distinguished by a small white star (“stella bianca”) added to the tread pattern of the road model. The symbol was placed on the side of the tyre known as the Stella Bianca Corsa. This was the model that Giuseppe Farina mounted on his Alfa Romeo at Silverstone in 1950, when the first Formula One World Championship was held. An undisputed star until the 1950s, the Stella Bianca scored many important victories with Ferrari and Maserati, dominating world motor racing championships. The Quadrifoglio coupled with the likes of Enzo Ferrari and Tazio Nuvolari became an unbeatable mix. With the car wearing Stella Bianca tyres, of course. Tyres change and the design of the cars has been subject to constant innovation but Alfa Romeo and Pirelli have always been together out on the circuits, right from the outset. In the 1960s, the Stella Bianca – the “Victory Tyre” – left the field open to the Stelvio, which immediately earned itself its nickname as the “Record-Breaker”. But first, the five-pointed white star need one final victory – and it came at the Italian Grand Prix on the Monza circuit with Alberto Ascari in his Ferrari 500.

We might be inclined to think that the life of this tyre, like so many others before and after it, had come to an end. But that was not to be. At the prompting of Ferrari, the Stella Bianca made its return to the racing circuits in 2018. A new model, with the same look as the original – but the look concealed the most advanced technologies developed by the Long P’s Research and Development team. After years of radials, Pirelli Collezione brought the traditional cross-ply structure back to the market, recalling the close bond between tyres made for roads and those designed for racing circuits around the world. The Stella Bianca sure has had a remarkable journey – from track to road, and now back to track. A story with many pages yet to be written.

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