Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901,
IvreaIvrea is a town and commune of the province of Turin in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Situated on the road leading to the Aosta Valley , it straddles the Dora Baltea and is regarded as the centre of the Canavese area. Ivrea lies in a basin that, in prehistoric times, formed a great lake...
– 27 February 1960, on a train from
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
to
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
entrepreneurAn entrepreneur is a person who has possession of an enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. It is an ambitious leader who combines land, labor, and capital to often create and market new goods or services. ... The term is a loanword...
, the son of the founder of
OlivettiIng. C. Olivetti & Co., SpA., known as Olivetti, is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- History :...
,
Camillo OlivettiCamillo Olivetti was an Italian electrical engineer and founder of Olivetti & Co., SpA., the Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines....
.
Adriano Olivetti was known worldwide during his lifetime as the Italian manufacturer of Olivetti
typewriterA typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with a set of "keys" that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper...
s,
calculatorA calculator is a device that is used for performing mathematical calculations. It differs from a computer by having a limited problem solving ability and an interface optimized for interactive calculation rather than programming...
s, and
computerA computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions.Although mechanical examples of computers have existed through much of recorded human history, the first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century . These were the size of a large room, consuming as...
s.
Olivetti was an entrepreneur and innovator who transformed shop-like operations into a modern factory. In and out of the factory, he both practiced and preached the utopian system of "the community movement", but he was not an astute enough politician to have a mass following.
The Olivetti empire was begun by his father Camillo.
Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901,
IvreaIvrea is a town and commune of the province of Turin in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Situated on the road leading to the Aosta Valley , it straddles the Dora Baltea and is regarded as the centre of the Canavese area. Ivrea lies in a basin that, in prehistoric times, formed a great lake...
– 27 February 1960, on a train from
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
to
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
entrepreneurAn entrepreneur is a person who has possession of an enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. It is an ambitious leader who combines land, labor, and capital to often create and market new goods or services. ... The term is a loanword...
, the son of the founder of
OlivettiIng. C. Olivetti & Co., SpA., known as Olivetti, is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- History :...
,
Camillo OlivettiCamillo Olivetti was an Italian electrical engineer and founder of Olivetti & Co., SpA., the Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines....
.
Adriano Olivetti was known worldwide during his lifetime as the Italian manufacturer of Olivetti
typewriterA typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with a set of "keys" that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper...
s,
calculatorA calculator is a device that is used for performing mathematical calculations. It differs from a computer by having a limited problem solving ability and an interface optimized for interactive calculation rather than programming...
s, and
computerA computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions.Although mechanical examples of computers have existed through much of recorded human history, the first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century . These were the size of a large room, consuming as...
s.
Olivetti was an entrepreneur and innovator who transformed shop-like operations into a modern factory. In and out of the factory, he both practiced and preached the utopian system of "the community movement", but he was not an astute enough politician to have a mass following.
The Olivetti empire was begun by his father Camillo. Initially, the "factory" (consisting of 30 workers) concentrated on electric measurement devices. By 1908, 25 years after
RemingtonRemington may refer to the following people:*Eliphalet Remington , American firearms designer*Philo Remington , American firearms and typewriter manufacturer, son of Eliphalet Remington...
in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Olivetti started to produce typewriters.
A Waldensian, Camillo believed that his children could get a better education at home. Adriano's formative years were spent under the tutelage of his mother, an educated and sober woman. Also, as a socialist, Camillo emphasized the non-differentiation between manual and intellectual work. His children, during their time away from study, worked with and under the same conditions as his workers. The discipline and sobriety Camillo imposed on his family induced rebellion in Adriano's adolescence manifested by a dislike of "his father's" workplace and by his studying at a polytechnic school of subjects other than the
mechanical engineeringMechanical Engineering is an engineering discipline that was developed from the application of principles from physics and materials science. Mechanical engineering involves the analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of various systems...
his father wanted.
Nevertheless, after graduation in 1924 he joined the company for a short while. When he became undesirable to Mussolini's Fascist regime, his father sent him to the United States to learn the roots of American industrial power. For the same reasons he later went to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Upon his return he married Paola Levi, a sister of
Natalia GinzburgNatalia Ginzburg née Levi was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics, and philosophy.- Life :...
and of his good friend; a marriage that produced three children but did not last long.
His visit to the United States at various plants, and especially at Remington, convinced Adriano that productivity is a function of the organizational system. With the approval of father Camillo, he organized the production system at Olivetti on a quasi-Taylorian mode and transformed the shop into a factory with departments and divisions. Possibly as a result of this reorganization output per man-hour doubled within five years. Olivetti for the first time sold half of the typewriters used in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
in 1933. Adriano Olivetti shared with his workers the productivity gains by increasing salaries, fringe benefits, and services.
His success in business did not diminish his idealism. In the 1930s he developed an interest in
architectureFor a topical guide to this subject, see Outline of architecture. Architecture is the art and science of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures for human shelter or use....
, as well as urban and community planning. He supervised a housing plan for the workers at Ivrea (a suburb of
TurinTurin is a major city as well as a business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River surrounded by the Alpine arch...
, where the Olivetti plant is still located) and a zoning proposal for the adjacent
Aosta ValleyThe Aosta Valley is a mountainous autonomous region in north-western Italy...
. Under Fascism, patronizing workers at work and at home was in line with the corporative design of the regime. While Adriano showed distaste for the regime, he joined the Fascist Party and became a
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
. Yet during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he participated in the underground antifascist movement, was jailed, and at the end sought refuge in
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
. There he was in close contact with the intellectual emigrees and he was able to develop further his socio-philosophy of the community movement.
During the immediate post-war years the Olivetti empire expanded rapidly, only to be briefly on the verge of bankruptcy after the acquisition of Underwood in the late 1950s. During this period, first calculators and then computers replaced the typewriter as a prime production focus. Adriano shared his time between business pursuits and attempts to practice and spread the utopian ideal of community life. His belief was that people who respect each other and their environment can avoid war and poverty. His utopian idea was similar to that preached by
Charles FourierFrançois Marie Charles Fourier was a French utopian socialist and philosopher. Fourier is credited by modern scholars with having originated the word féminisme in 1837; as early as 1808, he had argued, in the Theory of the Four Movements, that the extension of the liberty of women was the general...
and
Robert OwenRobert Owen , born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales was a social reformer and one of the founders of socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
during the previous century.
In his enterprises, Adriano Olivetti's attempts at utopia may be translated in practice as actions of an enlightened boss or a form of
corporatismCorporatism is a system of economic, political, and social organization where corporate groups such as business, ethnic, farmer, labour, military, patronage, or religious groups are joined together into a single governing body in which the different groups are mandated to negotiate with each other...
. He decreased the hours of work and increased salaries and fringe benefits. By 1957 Olivetti workers were the best paid of all in the metallurgical industry and Olivetti workers showed the highest productivity. His corporatism also succeeded in having his workers accept a company union not tied to the powerful national metallurgical trade unions.
During the 1950s, in a limited way, the community movement succeeded politically in Ivrea. (Camillo was even at one time mayor of Ivrea.) But the utopia at the factory and in Italy at large began withering away even before Adriano's death in 1960.
Adriano Olivetti's era saw great changes in Italian business and in industrial relations. New organizational methods were sought and humanistic idealism spread during the cruel time of World War II as well as during the difficult post-war years. The utopia of Olivetti could not have easily survived, but it helped induce the rapid reconversion of Italy's industry from war to peace-time production.
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