Courtesy Fondazione Adriano Olivetti – Fondo Ludovico Quaroni
event
Wednesday 6 December 2017 6.00 PM - 8.00 PM

Lezioni Olivettiane®.Matera and Adriano Olivetti: from its being a “disgrace to Italy” to the candidacy as European Capital of Culture 2019

Carlo Scarpa hall
single entry ticket € 5 – subscription of three events € 10
buying the ticket gives right to a reduced entry ticket to the museum (8 €) within a week from its issuing
free for holders of the myMAXXI card, with the possibility to reserve a seat by writing to mymaxxi@fondazionemaxxi.it before the day prior to the event (until full capacity)
In cooperation with Fondazione Adriano Olivetti

Promoting Olivetti’s concept of architectural culture as a means to study, analyse and enhance 20th-century Italian architecture

The MAXXI will host a new series of events to study urban transformation and the delicate relationship between historic and contemporary cities by symbolically juxtaposing the activities that the towns of Ivrea, Matera and Pozzuoli will carry out in the next years.

Three events to dwell upon Adriano Olivetti’s “Man’s cities”

The second event, which will see the participation of Pippo Ciorra, is devoted to the town of Matera, namely the “historic capital of the rural world”, where Adriano Olivetti arrived in 1950. As President of INU and Vice-president of UNRRA-CASAS, he created and interdisciplinary laboratory for designers, social workers, engineers and philosophers to study the “Sassi” in order to build places able to restore the dignity and sense of belonging of people. The Commission for the study of the town and countryside of Matera also saw the participation of Ludovico Quaroni, who designed the La Martella hamlet together with a group of architects. The hamlet and the other areas involved by the renovation process, namely Spine Bianche, Serra Venerdì, Lanera and Borgo Venusio are not only a good example of Adriano Olivetti’s desire for social and urban modernisation, but also an expression of Italian architectural Neorealism.

The work carried out by Mr. Olivetti in Matera is currently considered as one of the factors leading to the recent renaissance of the town, which went from being a “national disgrace” to being the European Capital of Culture 2019.

Pippo Ciorra is an architect, a critic, and a professor. He was a member of the “Casabella” editorial board from 1996 to 2012. He cooperates with newspapers and magazines, and has written many essays and publications. He is the director of the Villard d’Honnecourt international PhD programme, and teaches design and theory at the SAD of Ascoli Piceno. He is a member of the CICA, namely the International Committee of Architectural Critics. He has curated and organised exhibitions in Italy and abroad, and has been senior curator of MAXXI Architettura since 2009.