Il Canto della fabbrica

Everything started with the invitation that the Pirelli Foundation sent one day to the musician Francesco Fiore: to come and see the futuristic industrial centre in Settimo Torinese and to listen to the “music of the machines”. It was 2017, and that experience led to Il Canto della fabbrica, “the song of the factory”, later entrusted to the violin of Maestro Salvatore Accardo and premiered by the Orchestra da Camera Italiana at the Pirelli Industrial Centre of Settimo Torinese during the MITO Settembre Musica Festival.

The symphony of machines and the reflections on corporate culture that it was based on became a book of the same name, Il Canto della fabbrica, published by Mondadori in 2018. The book examines cultural changes and their contemporary representation and how they go hand in hand with music, literature, industrial relations, production mechanisms, and corporate culture. In the background is the digital factory of Settimo Torinese, with its production processes and products, its materials, crafts and professions, and its forms of expression. A book to be “listened to” and to go through, from the more than 120 images illustrating the Pirelli Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese – both yesterday and today – and the concert that was put on in the factory.