“Restarting from the perspective of knowledge”, asserts Ferruccio Resta, in order to go “from classrooms left empty by the virus towards a new central role for universities.” Resta is rector of the Milan Polytechnic and current president of CRUI, the Conference of Italian University Rectors. He’s an engineer, professor of Applied Mechanics for Machinery – the expression “civilisation of machines” suits him well. And in his new book, structured through a dialogue with Ferruccio de Bortoli and published by Bollati Boringhieri, he argues not only about the need to invest heavily in education, in order to make Italy more competitive in these times where the “knowledge economy” is prevalent, but also about the content of education, combining, in an original way, technology and beauty, humanistic thought and scientific knowledge, mathematics and literature, engineering and philosophy – just like the greatest Italian history of culture and economics teaches us. What we need is a “polytechnic culture”, together with its “industrial humanism” – extraordinarily relevant nowadays –, which in these times of digital economy and Artificial Intelligence should also be understood in terms of “digital humanism” (all themes that, by the by, we’ve addresses in this blog).

The PNRR, or “Piano nazionale di ripresa e resilienza” (National recovery and resilience plan), i.e. the Italian version of the EU’s Recovery Plan, allocates 31.9 billions to Education and Research in order to strengthen “the education system, digital and technical-scientific skills, research and technology transfer”, as explained by Palazzo Chigi in a press release. More in detail, “the Plan invests in nurseries, kindergartens, and childcare services; it creates 152,000 places for children up to three years old and 76,000 for children between three and six years old.” Investments will also be made in the structural restoration of school buildings, with the aim of renovating a total area of 2,400,000 square metres. And, as far as educational content is concerned, there are plans to shift focus and to reform doctoral and degree courses – for instance, by updating the regulations governing doctoral programmes and having them increase by about 3,000 units. Another press release by Palazzo Chigi states that the aim is to “develop vocational education and strengthen the chain of research and technology transfer” while paying particular attention to higher technical institutions, in order to increase the number of enrolled students, enhance laboratories with 4.0 technologies, train teachers and adapt the training programmes to the needs of businesses looking for qualified human capital, and develop a national platform for those offering and seeking jobs.

In short, we are faced with substantial resources and ambitious projects to be executed in a short period of time (by 2026 at the latest). Essentially, the Draghi government has made a move. Here, too, the EU reiterates the underlying meaning of its Recovery Plan’s strategy, in line with its fundamental direction and aptly suggested by its name, “Next Generation”. What needs to be done now is to promptly switch from the written Plan to the actual “worksites”, to choosing educational programmes and put them into practice.

Resta and de Bortoli’s book offers valuable indications on how to make universities and research work better, on how to strengthen the dialogue between university, local community and businesses, and on how to design higher education programmes that take into account the rapid development of new knowledge and therefore the equally intense deterioration of what we know today.

We need to teach how to learn and face a second challenge brought on precisely by sweeping technological changes: the challenge of understanding why we do certain things, of investigating benchmarks, human consequences and the ethics entailed in technological progress. Therefore, not only knowing how to effectively write Artificial Intelligence algorithms, but also understanding how to control and govern their impact. This to avoid secret machinations (as admonished by Luciano Floridi, professor of Philosophy of Information at the University of Oxford) and try to reconciliate high-tech development, freedom and responsibility – just as today’s philosophical engineers and poetical technologists are supposed to do.

University disciplines, Resta suggests, should no longer be constricted by rigid frameworks and, with the polytechnics in mind, he goes on to say, “Today, engineers are no longer technicians dealing with a single problem – they also need to respond to social challenges and complex issues that increasingly involve the ethics of technology. Indeed, the basic directives for the EU’s Recovery Plan, relating to environment and innovation, sustainability and digital economy, require people and professionals who are trained in a multidisciplinary way and are able to assimilate and originally synthesise knowledge that is in constant evolution.

In short, Italy urgently needs to invest in education and training, research and innovation, and the Recovery Plan’s financial resources and reforms are, ultimately, the right tool to achieve this, in order to build the culture of the future, as well as develop skills, productivity and competition. We need to fill a gap that comprises 13 billion people holding only a secondary school diploma, inadequate training and a low number of university graduates, especially in scientific subjects. And so we must develop a better education system, not only in schools but also outside of them, as part of that long-term relationship that should exist between education and work: what is technically called lifelong learning, which embodies the attitude of willing to pursue knowledge throughout our life. From this viewpoint, too, the role of universities as enlightened, open and effective institutions in term of educational processes is, as Resta says, crucial – education is our best future.

A thesis discussed at the University of Pisa looks at one particular aspect of Olivetti

A humanistic yet technologically advanced company. A place where people work but grow as people. Italy is full of such examples that continue to set the standard. Adriano’s Olivetti is certainly one of them. It is a case that is still studied from all angles and offers new insights every time. This is what Luca Manuguerra has accomplished with his thesis, discussed at the University of Pisa, as part of the Corporate Communication and Human Resources Policy programme. Manuguerra starts from a particular perspective that deserves to be explored, Olivetti’s Mechanical Training Centre, the company college that provides technical and humanistic training in the Olivetti context.

Manuguerra begins his research by summarising the facts. “Olivetti”, he explains “became a leading company in the mechanical products sector thanks to the ingenuity of some of its design solutions, which made it difficult for competitors to imitate its products. The company invested in new technologies, as well as in the professional development of its workforce. To maintain a competitive and successful profile, it is important to have staff who are qualified and trained, but also creative, open to dialogue and to sharing their work-related experiences”.

Functionality and beauty. Technology and humanism. The author of this study writes “For the company, aesthetics and design were fundamental to the functionality of the product, so it was essential to be able to design forms that could immediately communicate the function of the product”.

Alongside all this, there was a focus on the rounded training of Olivetti employees. Humanistic subjects alongside technical excellence. “Training”, Manuguerra goes on to say, “develops a strong sense of belonging, which (makes employees) feel like part of a community, encourages them to engage and express their ideas”.

Then came the change of pace, which Manuguerra summarises as follows, “During the 1950s, Olivetti became interested in electronics but the rest of the company saw this as a foreign idea. Almost none of Olivetti’s management team shared the vision of electronics in the company’s future”. According to Manuguerra’s research, there was “internal inconsistency between workers at this point. In other words, some workers were treated differently. The electronics staff were opposed by both the mechanical staff and the management. Research into the development of electronic products was met with mistrust or indifference, and mechanical skills, which had become technically or cognitively rigid, shunned any radical innovation”.

One of the consequences in the company was a discrepancy between the training provided for those working in mechanics and those working in electronics. “Training”, explains Manuguerra, “was therefore inconsistent with both strategy and corporate culture. The latter, which was geared towards collaboration and experimentation, was limited to the mechanical sector”.

So what was to be done? The study goes on to explain that an attempt to overcome the rift resulted in the use of a “group system”. Mechanical and electronics employees formed groups, breaking off from their respective tasks and working together. It was not an easy road, but Olivetti attempted it nonetheless and the study describes it well.

Luca Manuguerra’s thesis is useful to gain a better understanding of the history of a company that left its mark on Italian corporate culture in the 20th century, however you want to judge it.

La formazione e la coerenza interna nella gestione delle risorse umane: cosa insegna il caso Olivetti (Training and internal consistency in human resources management: what we can learn from Olivetti)

Luca Manuguerra

Thesis, University of Pisa, Business Communication and Human Resources Policy, 2021

Like monuments, anniversaries play a basic symbolic role, that is remembrance. For example, they remind us of how history is relevant today. They can also highlight the need to confirm a commitment or relaunch a project. Of course, they can become trivial events or empty rituals if they are not backed by a commitment to bring their meaning to life. This is a danger that must be avoided. It would damage our very human condition, which feeds on active memory and the future.

22 April is an important day. It’s Earth Day. During this period marked by the pandemic and recession, talking about Climate Change and sustainable development, both environmental and social, means thinking about anniversaries and rituals. Beyond symbolic dates, it means focussing on projects or choices for protecting and changing, on the paradigm shifts needed to live and work better, on the essential reforms for a broader, more inclusive and balanced well-being. (“Pianeta Terra chiama uomo” (Planet Earth calls man) on the “giornata della casa di tutti noi” (the day of our shared home), was the hard-hitting headline of the cover story of last Saturday’s “Robinson”, the weekly cultural section of “la Repubblica”). Pope Francis has raised these issues in his encyclicals, and they have been covered by the leading international economic literature for some time now. Covid19 is a disease that knows no borders and for which global responses are being developed through vaccines and new treatments, and it is accelerating the urgency of finding tangible, forward-looking responses to the crisis. Scientific, political, technological and social responses.

Social and environmental sustainability are intertwined. They must be addressed together when creating national and global policies to achieve them. They are closely linked in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the Paris Agreement for the 2030 Agenda. The EU Recovery Plan is now in an advanced state of development in all European countries. It focuses on the Green Economy and the Digital Economy, the environment and innovation, and on reforms in education and the knowledge economy to benefit the Next Generation (the generational pact, which needs to be rewritten, is an essential component of social sustainability). In the financial world, the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) benchmarks on which decisions for financial investments and corporate decisions are made, also focus on the environment and people, as well as the transparency and fairness of company management, starting with those listed on the stock exchange. The world is in motion, and we must continue to pay close attention to it.

Sustainability is a key asset for competitiveness and the productivity needed to achieve it. The most dynamic and successful companies are moving in this direction, as the positive performance of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index confirms (eleven Italian companies are included: Generali, Intesa, Leonardo, Pirelli, Poste, Telecom, Prysmian, etc.). A more responsible economy is needed. One with a development vision where profits, a well-regulated market culture, a sense of community and democracy can go hand in hand.

In an interview with Mario Calderini, professor at Milan Polytechnic (“la Repubblica”, 13 April), Ronald Cohen, financier and philanthropist, argues that “social ethics and economics must be combined”. Cohen is the Chairman of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, the type of investment that “aims to achieve tangible and measurable improvements in people’s living conditions and the environment, alongside profit”. “A major change in values has resulted in $30 trillion being invested in the world today to achieve more than just financial gain”. The bodies that set international reporting standards for calculating the value of companies “are now making sustainability an essential factor”. From economic value to social and environmental values.

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund ($9 trillion under management, including millions of workers’ pension funds), has been thinking along these lines for some time. In fact, he was one of the pioneers. His “annual letter to investors”, one of the world’s leading financial opinion documents, has sustainability as its investment guideline. Together with Bill Gates, he is planning a series of new sustainable energy initiatives, following the guidelines in Gates’ recent book (“How to avoid a climate disaster”, which has just been published in Italy by La nave di Teseo). Reflecting on the reactions to the pandemic, Fink says “Capitalism saved us from the virus” (interview with Mario Platero in “la Repubblica”, 16 April), referring to the extraordinary effort to produce vaccines in a short time (a collaboration between scientific research and industrial production), as well as the virtuous relations to tackle the new problems of communication between people, work and the distribution of products and services in times of illness, isolation and reduced mobility. He called for “balanced globalisation”. The economy is, of course, profit-oriented, committed to risk-taking and innovation, but also to solidarity. Above all, it is sensitive to the interests and values of its stakeholders, workers, consumers, communities and civil society.

There is another opinion is worth reflecting on, in terms of positive globalisation and social sustainability, inclusion and interaction between different cultures, that of Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer (interview with Federico Fubini in “Corriere della Sera”, 16 April). The background that led to Pfizer’s vaccine is “a wonderful message to the world. A Greek Jew running an American multinational and the people behind BioNTech, Turkish Muslims who emigrated to Germany, are working together to save the world, without even having a contract. I think that being an immigrant is the most important factor. Since I’ve been at Pfizer, my children and I have lived in eight different cities in five countries. This has given us the greatest gift of being being exposed to different cultures”.

Sustainability is a subject for dialogue. It is favoured by democratic and market cultures in particular. Once again, it is worth going back to the classics to look for roots and evidence. For example, in John Maynard Keynes‘ “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, “The authoritarian state systems of today seem to solve the problem of unemployment at the expense of efficiency and of freedom. It is certain that the world will not much longer tolerate the unemployment which, apart from brief intervals of excitement, is associated and in my opinion, inevitably associated with present-day capitalistic individualism. But it may be possible by a right analysis of the problem to cure the disease whilst preserving efficiency and freedom”.

Keynes died exactly 75 years ago, on 21 April. His thinking profoundly influenced the political and economic debate of the second half of the 20th century. In these times of increasing emphasis on sustainability, especially on a social level, he still has much to tell us.

A collection of short reports describes the past and present of some Italian industrial spaces

The present is inspired by the past and also uses it to look to the future. Factories, offices and spaces that were once alive remain so today, but in a different way. Italian industrial culture, as it really wants to be called, must reflect on this. Not with regrets or nostalgia, but with great objectivity (and perhaps a touch of gratitude). This is one of the possible interpretations of “Le fabbriche che costruirono l’Italia” (The factories that made Italy), a wonderful book by Giuseppe Lupo, a compilation of a series of reports from around the country, telling the story of the factories that shaped today’s Italian society, as the name suggests.

Lupo’s literary journey (and it was an actual journey because it took place between July and September 2019), takes in many symbolic places, suggesting a concept of modernity that can’t be forgotten. The author describes industrial sites in Settimo Torinese, Genoa, Arese, Rescaldina, Sesto San Giovanni, Bagnoli, Pozzuoli, Torviscosa, Porto Marghera, Ivrea, Terni, Valdagno and Turin in short easy-to-read chapters. Each site is linked to a company name that has made national industrial history and is very often still at the forefront of the economy. Lupo describes factories that are still operational and others that are no longer in use, he describes service stations, workers’ villages, urban structures and abandoned areas. He uses two invaluable tools to do this, what he sees and what 20th century culture has produced. Everything is enriched by a refined sensitivity that does not surrender to rhetoric.

The result is an easy read, but one that touches on complex and difficult issues. It points a finger at the “forgetfulness” of many and reminds us that we must remember history because it is still useful to everyone today. In this way, Lupo recaptures the physical, economic and productive aspects as well as a “moral dimension”, as he writes himself, that can’t be lost. What emerges is the identity of an Italy that has been able to modernise in a short space of time.

Lupo writes well and is easy to read, he writes like a true journalist, capable of making himself understood, and as an authentic scholar, capable of conveying the profound sense of places with a virtually unique way of life. It’s a must-read.

“Le fabbriche che costruirono l’Italia” The factories that made Italy

Giuseppe Lupo

Il Sole 24 Ore, 2020

“On the evening of 4 February 1968, Pino Tovaglia went up to the twenty-fifth floor of the Pirelli Centre. It was twenty past six. Tovaglia preferred to meet Castellani in a place of peace and quiet.” It is no coincidence that the article devoted to the recently deceased Arrigo Castellani, which was published in Pirelli magazine in 1969, should begin with a reference to the Milanese designer Pino Tovaglia. The designer and the Pirelli advertising director were friends for over ten years and together they created some of the most famous and brilliant works in the history of the visual communication of the “Long P”. On the one hand there was the meticulous young graphic designer, and on the other Castellani with his Roman ebullience and passion, and his constant desire to go one step farther and astonish people. These two personalities together created an outpouring of creativity and masterpieces. Pino Tovaglia started working with Pirelli in 1957, when Castellani himself took him on, together with five other “superstars” – Antonio Boggeri, Franco Grignani, Erberto Carboni, Ezio Bonini and Bob Noorda – to create a collaborative advertising campaign for tyres: six different styles, six ways of interpreting the product, six artistic forms. Tovaglia’s contribution for the Pirelli Rolle was clear from the outset: clean lines, nothing superfluous, and an “optical” preference for black and white.

His bold style was destined to make its mark in the following decade, at the height of Pop Art, culminating in the Un viaggio, ma advertising campaign for the Cinturato tyre in 1966. Tovaglia’s geometric black-and-white figures that frame and often cover the surreal nursery rhymes invented by Castellani became an authentic cultural symbol in the “swinging” Milan of the late 1960s. The writer Camilla Cederna was clearly amused and fascinated by them in her article for Pirelli magazine: London cannot have been that far away, for the same play of blacks and whites dominated the 1966 film The Tortoise and the Hare made by the British Pirelli Ltd for the Cinturato. Tovaglia’s minimal touch appeared again the following year, when he and Roberto Menghi were asked to think up a novel approach to the Pirelli stand at the Paris Motor Show: an almost hypnotic sequence of black and white lines conveyed the idea of the “radial”, interrupted by a sort of red “heel”. A vision of the Cinturato that is as powerful as it is immediate. Tovaglia and Castellani wrote the last chapter of their partnership in 1968, for the advertising director died suddenly at the end of the year. He did, however, leave behind two more minor masterpieces. One was the “flags” advertising campaign: the Pirelli Cinturato known in every country of the world, shown only by its stylised national flag. The other was the cover of Pirelli magazine no. 3 of that year – the one for which Tovaglia went up to the twenty-fifth floor of the Pirelli Tower that evening on 4 February. The meticulous designer once again wanted to provoke the vivacious manager, knowing that, as usual, he would come out on top in their friendly duel: “The time of man. Work and more” was written on the cover. In black and white – of course.

A good book that provides the essential cognitive elements needed to understand a complex topic always in evolution.

Business as “the driving force behind a culture of sustainability”, able to touch all aspects of civil life. A goal that while not easy, it is not impossible to accomplish, and Chiara Mio, professor in Business Economics at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice as well as member of several boards of directors, discusses the way to reach it.

With L’azienda sostenibile (The sustainable company), Mio succeeds in condensing what has been achieved in the field of business sustainability in not too many pages. Starting from a basic assumption: respect for people and the environment must be at the heart of a company that looks to the future. A condition that involves all the actors of the social and productive system, including, therefore, institutions as well as individual workers.

The investigation starts by clarifying what is meant by sustainability and continues by stating how it is “the author’s conviction (…) that companies can act, in this historic period, as real drivers of the transition towards sustainability.”

The book is structured in five chapters. The first addresses the basic concepts concerning sustainability from an economic-corporate perspective. The second analyses the role of the State as a vehicle for “sustainable principles and objectives”, as well as for the “search of better ways for companies to carry out economic processes through business models.” and then goes on to examine the “potential contribution of consumers to sustainable development.” The fourth chapter, on the other hand, summarises the circular economy, while the fifth looks at “sustainable finance” as well as at the economic-financial indicators for a correct identification of business sustainability.

Each chapter – and this is one of the intriguing features of this work – also includes real-life “cases”, such as those of Erg, OVS, Treedom, Alessi, Unilever Italia, Piovan, Unipol, in addition to theoretical aspects.

Chiara Mio’s book makes for very useful reading for anyone who wishes to gain a clear and reliable opinion on such a complex and ever-changing topic. To be read and annotated.

L’azienda sostenibile (The sustainable company)

Chiara Mio

Laterza, 2021

A thesis defended at the University of Pisa discusses the circular economy and its concrete chance of realisation.

Corporate responsibility from an environmental point of view, too – a thorny issue not fully resolved as yet, and that therefore should be approached with care. This is precisely what Stefano Merciadri does with his thesis, Il ruolo delle imprese verso uno sviluppo sostenibile: analisi di eccellenze italiane e strategia “Rifiuti Zero” (The role of businesses on the path towards sustainable development: an analysis of Italian leading companies and the “Zero Waste” strategy), recently defended as part of the Business Communication and Human Resources Policy course at the University of Pisa.

Merciadri’s research has one goal: to demonstrate how, starting from businesses and new economic perspectives, it is possible to reverse the negative relationship between business and the environment and restore a positive relationship with the latter while simultaneously guaranteeing the well-being of future generations.

To this end, the author begins by examining the fundamental concepts on which his research is based: from sustainability to green economy, up to strictly organisational aspects such as corporate strategies and corporate social responsibilities, paying particular attention to a strategy known as “Zero Waste”. The work then explores the organisational methods of companies active in the green economy on the one hand, and the relationships they build with stakeholders and customers on the other. It is in this section that “the importance of organisational culture in disseminating the new green ideals through the various hierarchical levels” is emphasised. The research concludes with an in-depth examination of the contradictions inherent in the development model based on the idea of unlimited resources and the linear economy. To better clarify the key aspects of his work, Merciadri also includes some case studies of companies that are particularly committed to sustainability, such as Contarina S.p.A., Alia Servizi Ambientali S.p.A., ASCIT S.p.A., Sea Risorse S.p.A..

The author writes in his conclusion: “I found success factors in all the companies concerned. The first factor that should be highlighted relates to communication and organisational culture. (…) Another fundamental factor when pursuing sustainability is the design and realisation of state-of-the-arts plants. What matters most, however, is the feasibility of business culture taking a step towards a greater ubiquity of the principles of the circular economy and environmental sustainability.”

Il ruolo delle imprese verso uno sviluppo sostenibile: analisi di eccellenze italiane e strategia “Rifiuti Zero” (The role of businesses on the path towards sustainable development: an analysis of Italian leading companies and the “Zero Waste” strategy)

Stefano Merciadri

Thesis, University of Pisa, Business Communication and Human Resources Policy, 2021

The Italian-speaking organiser of a Zoom discussion – or webinar, the loanword Italian speakers have adopted – earnestly asks all participants to “mutare”, i.e. to go on mute. A senior participant ironically comments on the Italianised term. Some smile, while all click on the mute icon.

An everyday detail in these difficult pandemic times, fraught with caution, distancing, seclusion (which in Italy is now called lockdown), a digital life with relationships we nonetheless managed to keep, amidst remote meetings, video lessons and remote working (or smart working if you prefer, though very often it really doesn’t feel that smart). So why, just when illness, recession, bereavement pain and fear about work and finances hit, contemplating words becomes relevant? Why ponder about “mute” and “mutare”?

We live with words. We are made of those same words we utter, read, write, listen to, remember. Words have a soul, and wings; they announce, they call to mind. They define the world. They’re not made of dreams – indeed, they weigh so heavily on history and on the fate of women and men that they set things in motion, and perhaps even change them. By naming, they conceptualise facts and things.

Nomina sunt consequentia rerum (“names are the consequences of what they name”) said the Romans, who were practical people. But words are also something else, something beyond defining reality. An instrument of power, above all, and as such they wield great force. A lever for politics. “He [Churchill] mobilized the English language and sent it into battle” said Lord Halifax, one of the most dogged opponents of the British statesman, after the speech that led the Members of Parliament to reject any notion of negotiating with Hitler’s Nazis, in Darkest Hour – a great film by Joe Wright, starring an incredible Gary Oldman.

Words inhabit “La voce delle sirene” (The voice of the sirens), to quote the insightful book by Laura Pepe, professor at the University of Milan, about “the Greeks and the art of persuasion” (Laterza Ed.). “According to a famous and felicitous phrase by Homer, words have wings: not like birds but rather like arrows, which swiftly cut through the air straight towards the target, breaking through the heart of those who listen to them.”

The Greeks built the language of philosophers and poets, scientists and legendary storytellers. They brought to life, through words, abstract concepts and formidable myths that founded civilisations of which, thankfully, we still bear the mark today, and their wisdom helps us to live, to plan, to do and to tell. Laura Pepe asserts: “From time immemorial, the Greeks have always known that words can be used to persuade, to show what is true and what is right. But they also knew that words hold a magical force within them: they can turn into a spell that can dominate and steer the spirit of the listener, they can charm like music and heal like medicine, but above all, they can beguile and deceive.”

Words are stones, as Carlo Levi taught us. Yet, they’re also ambiguous, pliable, slippery. They cut, leaving a scar, and they distract, misdirect, betray. Ulysses, a cunning master of these arts, had himself tied to the ship’s mast, so as not to yield to the sirens’ lure.

Words, in short, are redeeming, divine – and dangerous. As such, they need to be used with caution and with cognisance. Words must be respected.

This is why, precisely in uncertain and unpredictable times, focusing on words, and learning how to use them, becomes a necessity – a matter of civilisation, and, at the end of the day, of using rhetoric properly, as Aristotle and later Cicero well knew. In other words, a matter of democracy (dictators and impostors don’t like it at all when words are free and critical). A matter of responsibility.

“We do not know where evil begins, whether from words or from things, but when words become corrupted and meanings become uncertain, the meaning of our actions and of our works becomes equally precarious. Things rely on their names and vice versa” says Octavio Paz, Mexican author and winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature. And, even more concisely, “A country becomes corrupted when its syntax becomes corrupted.” His is a lesson in culture and civilisation that still resonates.

True, words are affected by changes in time, and language is a variable mechanism: it evolves, as Antonio Gramsci, Don Lorenzo Milani, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Tullio De Mauro taught us. And evolution is anything but the degradation of a language and its reduction to stereotypes and trivialities.

Language is a mongrel, affected by other languages, incorporating terms and syntactic structures, thus building new forms of expression. It’s open source in nature, while simultaneously holding on to a strong identity, rooted yet mobile and multifarious, just like all identities that are open and fertile, incidentally. Hence, that identity must be learned, studied, carefully nurtured. There’s a big difference between modifying and corrupting.

In the year of Dante‘s 700^th anniversary, rereading his works means thinking about language (indeed, he’d been an extraordinary innovator of language) and its evolution, while being careful not to fall into the banal trap of adaptations lacking in meaning and function. Best to use proper Italian terms, such as raccontare rather than the English “storytelling”, or consegnare rather than the hybrid “deliverare”.

Mario Draghi, a man of experience and international culture, whose English is excellent and elegant, also warned about the linguistic obsession of pretending to speak English, especially in the jargon of digital technologies and of economy, which ends up adulterating the Italian language.

Therefore, it’d be best to try and ask to stay silent in Italian rather than using “mutare”, and learn how to coin new Italian terms better suitable to express our changing times.

Pirelli has been presenting its products at exhibitions and trade fairs ever since it was founded. After the National Exhibition in Milan in 1881, when the company has not yet reached the age of ten, it began appearing at trade fairs across the world, from Paris (1900) to Osaka (1903), to Saint Louis (1904) and Buenos Aires (1910). There was no shortage of experimentation in terms of display installations at these early twentieth-century fairs – such as the blown-up poster photo of workers leaving the factory, which was created by Luca Comerio for the 1906 Sempione fair – but it was in the 1950s that great names in architecture and graphic design came up with truly innovative solutions for trade-fair architecture. With Leonardo Sinisgalli as a consultant, Pirelli resumed its advertising activity in all its various forms in 1948. Trade fairs played an important part in presenting the company’s numerous products at an international level, as can be seen in the many photographs that are preserved in our Historical Archive and that are now available online. One of the first major post-war trade fairs in which Pirelli took part with an innovative stand was the 1951 Fiera Campionaria in Milan, which once again opened its doors after the reconstruction following the 1943 bombing raids. The concept was most likely by Sinisgalli, but the architectural design of the stand was the work of Luigi Gargantini, who created a sort of “advertising castle”, as the magazine Domus referred to it in its July-August 1951 issue: an installation with no products on display but only the advertisements created by Pirelli throughout its long history, reproduced on cubes and polyhedrons fastened to poles inside a structure that was open on four sides. “Rarely has a product of modern life been honoured with such an elegant display”, wrote Vittorio Bonicelli in his article “Architettura pubblicitaria“ [Advertising Architecture] in Pirelli magazine, “but that is not really the most important aspect […]: what matters most is the balance of solids and voids, and how space, light and colour have their own very precise, unalterable place. This is the essence of style,” concludes Bonicelli.

In the 1950s, when the “Propaganda Pirelli” department was taken over by Arrigo Castellani after Leonardo Sinisgalli had stepped down, the phenomenon of trade fairs expanded dramatically, both in terms of the number of visitors and as places for architectural experimentation. The displays became increasingly spectacular, in order to satisfy the public’s desire for “part science fiction and part funfair” as Francesco Mafera put it in his article for Pirelli magazine, Settantacinque fiere in un anno [Seventy-five trade fairs in one year] in which he wondered how appropriate the magnificence and cost of some exhibition stands had become in those years. In the article, he mentions the structure designed by the architect Roberto Menghi for the 1955 Fiera Campionaria as an example of a “sensational” display: a raised swimming pool, the outcome of a partnership between Pirelli and the organising committee of the fair. The pool was in the form of a reinforced concrete cage with glass walls, placed on ten pedestals, in which the divers of the Pirelli Sports Group demonstrated the company’s products for the sea. One of the most spectacular pavilions was set up by Pirelli at the Fiera del Levante in Bari that same year: it was an authentic work of engineering, once again entrusted to Luigi Gargantini with the supervision of the engineer Giuseppe Valtolina. An enormous tractor tyre, 16 metres in diameter and weighing 20 tons, was balanced on a cantilevered support over the main street of the fair, towering above the public as they walked beneath it, conveying an idea of the power of Pirelli’s contribution to the development of the South of Italy. Considerable technical measures were required both to keep the structure in equilibrium and to withstand the wind, as well as to obtain the extraordinary size of the wheel. An article was written about this display too, and published in Pirelli magazine, extolling its architectural value, which was given by “the contrast between the simple, linear structures of the support […] and the inflated sculptural roundness of the tyre with the very pronounced swirl of its tread.” Pirelli products for agriculture were shown around the structure, in a display designed by Pino Tovaglia, with “a decorative play of great sculptural effect”.

There are also some examples of installations from these years that are less spectacular but still remarkable for the high quality of their design. This was the case at the 1956 Bicycle and Motorcycle Fair, where Pirelli showed its products in a display designed by Franco Albini and Franca Helg, with the contribution of Pino Tovaglia. The stand retraced the history of the bicycle, with a display of historical items inside a structure that recalled the shape of a large wheel. A pillar at the centre held up four radial frames with graphics by Tovaglia, beneath which were the tyres and accessories for bicycles and motorcycles that had made the history of two-wheeled transport. The display was a fine example of the rationalism and discipline typical of Franco Albini, and the stand was hailed by the magazine Ciclismo as “the greatest, most moving and most poetic ode to the bicycle that any firm, large or small (and this is a very large, unattainable one), has ever devoted to the queen of the road”.

Those involved in the design of trade-fair stands in these years and, later, in the 1960s, also included Erberto Carboni, Bruno Munari, and Bob Noorda, as well as Renato Guttuso, who in 1961 created the extraordinary mosaic dedicated to scientific research. The work was shown in the pavilion designed for Pirelli by Franco Albini and Franca Helg for Expo 61 in Turin, and is now on display at the Pirelli Foundation.

A look at the causes of Italy’s decline and the possible path of relaunch and development

A country in decline that can recover. A virtuous path, with which it is possible (and necessary) to begin this recovery and in which institutions, businesses and citizens can play a new role. This is the positive message that comes out of “Declino Italia” (Italy’s decline) by Andrea Capussela, a recently published work of just over a hundred pages on the ills of Italy and how to solve them.

The gist of the thesis – the author writes from his own experience as an economist in the field and bases his work on a broader analysis of the country – is that Italy is in decline because it is organised in an inequitable and inefficient way. The introduction and first few pages of the book explain how the opportunities of the many are limited in favour of the income of a few, and how such incomes remain protected by the tension between individual rationality and collective interest. An iron yet reversible logic, that can be changed by re-establishing the foundations of civil coexistence based on trust, on expectations that can be met (including those of businesses) and on a freedom consisting of shared rules.

To provide some understanding of the situation Capussela starts by effectively summarising, in a few dozen pages, the path of the economic and political causes of Italy’s decline. This is a journey that lasted a quarter of a century and which appears to belong to another country altogether, not to the Italy whose economic and social structure allowed it to rise after the war and even give generate a boom. The author then explains that the country appears to be organised in a less equitable and efficient way than others: in particular, the rule of law and political accountability are weaker and this limits both corporate productivity and citizens’ opportunities. Under these conditions, a situation has arisen whereby the “defence of income” prevails over the search for economic development and inclusiveness, a situation that seems influenced by a force rising from the “tension between individual rationality and collective interest”. It is from this snapshot, however, that Capussela draws together the factors necessary for a relaunch, levers that can tangibly emerge from a battle of ideas, that can set “the civil energies and material resources currently being squandered” free.

Andrea Capussela’s book is not always an easy read, but it should nonetheless be read by all those who want to acquire a different perspective on the present. And, as always with books that make you think, while it is not necessary to fully agree with their authors, it is necessary to listen to them.

Declino Italia (Italy’s decline)

Andrea Capussela

Einaudi, 2021