The Fertile Context of Olivetti Machines: From Kinematic Device to Human-Centered Design

At the beginning of the 20th century, the engineer Camillo Olivetti developed a streamlined industrial system for the production of typewriters, based on the model of similar successful trials in America. After some initial difficulties and the stop caused by the war, the project of the engineer from Ivrea resulted in an absolutely typical manufacturing model which combined the serial production culture with the quality of the Italian manufacturing tradition. Over the years, the Ivrea-based company’s range of machines and equipment increased in line with its vocation for experimentation and research in the field of culture and society, man’s condition and man’s working conditions. Olivetti products actually reflected peculiar ideologies and concretized their ways and contributions in the field of reality and life, moving from the work environments to social service, architecture and urban planning, until to cultural and editorial initiatives. This paper intends to analyze the Olivetti case as emblematic for Italian design because it was able to combine the “taste for the machine” with Italian manufactur- ing culture by recounting how it was used as a case study for the teaching activity aimed at building a methodology of historical approach to design project.