COMMUNITY

The presentation of Mario Piccinini’s publication dedicated to the multifaceted figure of Adriano Olivetti becomes the occasion to critically revisit and actualize one of the main ‘watchwords’ of Olivetti’s season and thought: community.

The community hypothesized and practiced by Adriano Olivetti constituted a component of the democratic order closely rooted in the territory: an organic organizational, socioeconomic and administrative form, capable of standing as an alternative to the alienating expansive metropolitan phenomena of postwar Italy. In which architecture, urbanism and planning at all scales played a decisive and central role in community life.

In the current debate on post-pandemic cities and societies, the Olivettian idea of community finds renewed attention and declination, often accompanied by simplifying deformations and bending influenced by the uncertain contemporary sociopolitical scenario. A trend that highlights the symptoms of the no longer elusive need to identify new forms of sustainability, inclusiveness and social welfare, restoring dignity and fullness to our lifestyles and coexistence.