Olivetti

Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been owned by TIM S.p.A. since 2003. The company is known for innovative product design, ranging from the 1950s Lettera 22 portable typewriter, to some of the first commercial programmable desktop calculators, such as the 1964 Programma 101, as well as the pop-art inspired Valentine typewriter of 1969. Between 1954 and 2001, Italy's Association of Industrial Design (ADI) awarded 16 Compasso d'Oro prizes to Olivetti products and designs – more than any other company or designer. At one point in the 1980s, Olivetti was the world's third largest personal computer manufacturer and remained the largest such European manufacturer during the 1990s.

History

Founding

The company was founded as "Ing. C. Olivetti & C., S.p.A." by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune of Ivrea, Italy. Olivetti was initially a typewriter manufacturer. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti. Olivetti opened its first overseas manufacturing plant in 1930, and its Divisumma electric calculator was launched in 1948. It inspired Thomas J. Watson Jr. to change IBM's approach to industrial design beginning in the 1950s. In 1959, Olivetti produced Italy's first electronic computer, the transistorised Elea 9003, and bought the Underwood Typewriter Company. It sold its electronics division to General Electric as required by banks for new loans. But it continued to develop new computing products, including Programma 101, one of the first commercially produced programmable calculators. In the 1970s and 1980s, Olivetti was the biggest manufacturer of office machines in Europe and 2nd biggest PC vendor in Europe after IBM. In 1980, Olivetti began distributing in Indonesia through Dragon Computer & Communication. In 1981, Olivetti installed the electronic voting systems for the European Parliament in Strasbourg and Luxembourg. In 1986, the company acquired Triumph-Adler, a major office equipment manufacturer based in Germany that also produced typewriters, from Litton Industries of the United States. With this acquisition, Olivetti grabbed 50 percent of the European typewriter market. In September 1994, the company launched Olivetti Telemedia chaired by Elserino Piol. Since 2003, Olivetti has been part of the Telecom Italia Group through a merger.

Design

[A] preoccupation with design developed into a comprehensive corporate philosophy, which embraced everything from the shape of a space bar to the color scheme for an advertising poster. Olivetti became famous for the meticulous attention it paid to the design of its products, through collaborations with notable architects and designers, over a nearly 60-year period starting in the late 1930s. An early example is the portable 1932 Olivetti MP1 (Modello Portatile in Italian). From the 1940s to the 1960s, Olivetti industrial design was led by Marcello Nizzoli, who was responsible for the Lexicon 80 and the portable Lettera 22 typewriters, which were released in 1948 and 1950 respectively. The architect and designer Ettore Sottsass began consulting for Olivetti in the late 1950s and designed a series of products including the Tekne 3 typewriter in 1958, the Elea 9003 computer in 1959, and later, the Praxis 48 typewriter in 1964 and the Valentine portable typewriter in 1969. In 1954, Mario Tchou joined Olivetti and was in put in charge of a team responsible for creating a commercial computer. In 1957, the team created the Elea 9001. Tchou went on to lead a team of 500 engineers, and decided to include transistors in the Elea 9003. Mario Bellini joined Sottsass at Olivetti in 1963. He designed the Programma 101 (1965), the Divisumma 18 (1973), and the Logos 68 (1973) calculators, and in 1966 the TCV-250 video display terminal. Mario Bellini and Ettore Sottsass, who by then directed design for Olivetti, hired designers such as George Sowden and James Irvine. Sowden worked for Olivetti from 1970 until 1990 and designed the company's first desktop computer, the Olivetti L1, in 1978 (following ergonomic research lasting two years). In 1991, Sowden's design for the Olivetti fax OFX420 won the ADI Compasso d'Oro Award. In 1999 Michele De Lucchi designed the Art Jet 10 inkjet printer, which was also awarded the Compasso d'Oro, and in 2001, the Gioconda calculator. In 1952, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) held an exhibit titled "Olivetti: Design in Industry". Another exhibit was mounted by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1969 and later toured five other cities. Many Olivetti products and archival material related to design are held in museum collections including the MoMA design collection, the Cooper Hewitt in New York, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Between 1954 and 2001, Olivetti won 16 Compasso d'Oro awards for design. In May 2022, ADI Design Museum in Milan paid tribute to this achievement with an exhibition titled Podium 16. Olivetti paid attention to more than product design. Graphic design and architectural design was also considered pivotal to the company, which engaged architects and designers such as Gae Aulenti, Walter Ballmer, BBPR, Egon Eiermann, Figini e Pollini, Ignazio Gardella, Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Carlo Scarpa, Giovanni Pintori, Bob Noorda, and Lella and Massimo Vignelli to design factories, office buildings, showrooms, and publicity materials. Giovanni Pintori was hired by Adriano Olivetti in 1936 to work in the publicity department. Pintori was the creator of the Olivetti logo and many promotional posters used to advertise the company and its products. During his activity as Art Director from 1950, Olivetti's graphic design obtained several international awards, and he designed works that created the Olivetti image and became emblematic Italian reference in the history of 20th-century design. Those designers also created the Olivetti Synthesis office furniture series which mainly were used to be installed in the firm's own headquarters, worldwide branch offices and showrooms. Olivetti also produced some industrial production machinery, including metalworking machines of the Horizon series.

Typewriters

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