4 ms·

Utopia, Abandoned: The Olivetti Town

113 points by ktpsns 7y ago

mruts 7y ago
> His experience led him to the realization that “it was necessary to set man free from this degrading slavery.” And we currently are doing a really good job at it through automation, and yet, people still complain.
- chacha2 7y ago
  They wouldn't if they received any benefit from that automation.
  - mruts 7y ago
    Of course they do, in the 3rd world country I live in you see construction workers hauling rocks by hand with no shoes on. Certainly seems to me that things have gotten a lot better in America in the last 200 years.
    - afiori 7y ago
      And everybody is thankful for that, still a different kind of reaction is needed when automation creates huge regions full of unemployed workers and no jobs with comparable skill requirements. If the perfect cheap robot could take instantly over all human occupations nobody would ever have to work a day in their life.
    - vintermann 7y ago
      > It is the interaction of productivity and inequality that makes societies vulnerable to idle unemployment. The poor in technologically primitive societies hustle to live. In relatively equal, technologically advanced societies, people create plenty of demand for one another’s services. But when productivity and inequality are combined, we get a highly productive elite that cannot provide adequate employment, and a mass of people who preserve more value by remaining idle and cutting consumption than by attempting low-productivity work. Steve Randy Waldman wrote a post about "Tradeoffs between inequality and employment", https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/3487.html https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/3487.html - recommended.
CalChris 7y ago
I worked for Olivetti in Ivrea and it was a nice town. However, any town needs jobs and a tax base. It's set in the Aosta valley. The river which ran through was used as a practice center for a kayaking team. At the time, it wasn't far from winter skiing but I understand global warming has closed most of those resorts. Northern Italian cooking (Piemontese) was amazing and we had a list of restaurants with notations of who went there (Bill Gates went here, ...). Ivrea itself had a walking street, Via Palestra. I walked to work, getting an espresso in the morning. No one was actually from Ivrea. It was a company town. If I wanted the Olivetti operator, I'd dial 6, IIRC. Most people didn't have phones and you'd make appointments. I made appointments to play basketball. Many if not most people, went home on weekends, or at least often. And everyone left for August. Olivetti drew people from all over Italy. I remember one woman who definitely made it known that she was Roman, went back to Rome on weekends, and was angling somehow to get transferred back to Rome. Lunch at Olivetti was pretty good by American rather low standards. They served wine at lunch. Then it was an ice cream while watching people play tennis on clay. Of course, Olivetti was a typewriter company and we were working in the factory. I was there for a month before I was allowed to go to lunch on my own because otherwise I'd get lost in the labyrinth. I haven't been back in long time but but I suppose I was there at the right time.
- phkamp 7y ago
  Seconded! I worked on a SW-project there in the late 1980-ies (Moving the European Parliament from OSI to TCP/IP) and it was a strange and wonderful place indeed. And yes, very good food, I gained four kg in the first two months :-) But there were absolutely no doubt anywhere that there were two classes of people: Italians and "Strangero" like me, and God help you if you did not understand Italian... The sadness of Olivettis passing is somewhat tempered by the fact that Arduino grew from its ashes.
  - CalChris 7y ago
    I only hung out with Italians and I was cheap English lessons. The other faction of foreigners, English tech writers, were very offish. I lived in San Francisco for 25 years and it's hilarious to watch what a self important high school reunion it has become. San Francisco wasn't always this way. I'm very happy for my time in Ivrea. That was quality of life.
david927 7y ago
I have been to Ivrea many times for their (highly recommended) annual orange-throwing festival. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Oranges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Oranges It's a stunning town, like many in Italy, and it's nice to read more about its Olivetti influence.
platz 7y ago
> The Italian town Ivrea was once a model for workers’ rights and progressive design. Now, it’s both a cautionary tale and evidence of a grand experiment in making labor humane. The subheading appears to be a mis-characterization of the subsequent paragraphs (company town) that make it sound not at all like an experiment in "progressive design".
- barbecue_sauce 7y ago
  I assume they are referring to Olivetti’s reputation for progressive aesthetic design.
  - platz 7y ago
    I see.
arthurofbabylon 7y ago
This author, Nikil Saval, deserves a spot on your home screen. He is an amazing journalist. Here’s the URL to his stories on NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/by/nikil-saval https://www.nytimes.com/by/nikil-saval
peter303 7y ago
Sounds like future of Mountain View and Google.
incompatible 7y ago
If it's so unpopular now, can you live there cheaply? I suppose there are semi-abandoned towns and villages all over non-English speaking Europe which would have cheap accommodation.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  The problem is, it's not a town really. There are no services, no rural areas to farm, no cultural life and no society. It will need a major breath of life to become a town.
sandworm101 7y ago
Ugg... that theater looks like the mining base from Aliens (1986). I don't mean that it is derelict but that the architecture is similar. https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Hadley%27s_Hope https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Hadley%27s_Hope
- jacobush 7y ago
  Lovely
pmontra 7y ago
Crespi d'Adda, some 30 km east of Milan, so not very far away from Ivrea, has a similar history. Smaller town tough. It's a UNESCO site. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/730/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/730/

113 points by ktpsns 7y ago

> His experience led him to the realization that “it was necessary to set man free from this degrading slavery.” And we currently are doing a really good job at it through automation, and yet, people still complain.

chacha2 7y ago
They wouldn't if they received any benefit from that automation.
- mruts 7y ago
  Of course they do, in the 3rd world country I live in you see construction workers hauling rocks by hand with no shoes on. Certainly seems to me that things have gotten a lot better in America in the last 200 years.
  - afiori 7y ago
    And everybody is thankful for that, still a different kind of reaction is needed when automation creates huge regions full of unemployed workers and no jobs with comparable skill requirements. If the perfect cheap robot could take instantly over all human occupations nobody would ever have to work a day in their life.
  - vintermann 7y ago
    > It is the interaction of productivity and inequality that makes societies vulnerable to idle unemployment. The poor in technologically primitive societies hustle to live. In relatively equal, technologically advanced societies, people create plenty of demand for one another’s services. But when productivity and inequality are combined, we get a highly productive elite that cannot provide adequate employment, and a mass of people who preserve more value by remaining idle and cutting consumption than by attempting low-productivity work. Steve Randy Waldman wrote a post about "Tradeoffs between inequality and employment", https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/3487.html https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/3487.html - recommended.

CalChris 7y ago

I worked for Olivetti in Ivrea and it was a nice town. However, any town needs jobs and a tax base. It's set in the Aosta valley. The river which ran through was used as a practice center for a kayaking team. At the time, it wasn't far from winter skiing but I understand global warming has closed most of those resorts. Northern Italian cooking (Piemontese) was amazing and we had a list of restaurants with notations of who went there (Bill Gates went here, ...). Ivrea itself had a walking street, Via Palestra. I walked to work, getting an espresso in the morning. No one was actually from Ivrea. It was a company town. If I wanted the Olivetti operator, I'd dial 6, IIRC. Most people didn't have phones and you'd make appointments. I made appointments to play basketball. Many if not most people, went home on weekends, or at least often. And everyone left for August. Olivetti drew people from all over Italy. I remember one woman who definitely made it known that she was Roman, went back to Rome on weekends, and was angling somehow to get transferred back to Rome. Lunch at Olivetti was pretty good by American rather low standards. They served wine at lunch. Then it was an ice cream while watching people play tennis on clay. Of course, Olivetti was a typewriter company and we were working in the factory. I was there for a month before I was allowed to go to lunch on my own because otherwise I'd get lost in the labyrinth. I haven't been back in long time but but I suppose I was there at the right time.

phkamp 7y ago
Seconded! I worked on a SW-project there in the late 1980-ies (Moving the European Parliament from OSI to TCP/IP) and it was a strange and wonderful place indeed. And yes, very good food, I gained four kg in the first two months :-) But there were absolutely no doubt anywhere that there were two classes of people: Italians and "Strangero" like me, and God help you if you did not understand Italian... The sadness of Olivettis passing is somewhat tempered by the fact that Arduino grew from its ashes.
- CalChris 7y ago
  I only hung out with Italians and I was cheap English lessons. The other faction of foreigners, English tech writers, were very offish. I lived in San Francisco for 25 years and it's hilarious to watch what a self important high school reunion it has become. San Francisco wasn't always this way. I'm very happy for my time in Ivrea. That was quality of life.

david927 7y ago

I have been to Ivrea many times for their (highly recommended) annual orange-throwing festival. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Oranges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Oranges It's a stunning town, like many in Italy, and it's nice to read more about its Olivetti influence.

platz 7y ago

> The Italian town Ivrea was once a model for workers’ rights and progressive design. Now, it’s both a cautionary tale and evidence of a grand experiment in making labor humane. The subheading appears to be a mis-characterization of the subsequent paragraphs (company town) that make it sound not at all like an experiment in "progressive design".

barbecue_sauce 7y ago
I assume they are referring to Olivetti’s reputation for progressive aesthetic design.
- platz 7y ago
  I see.

arthurofbabylon 7y ago

This author, Nikil Saval, deserves a spot on your home screen. He is an amazing journalist. Here’s the URL to his stories on NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/by/nikil-saval https://www.nytimes.com/by/nikil-saval

peter303 7y ago

Sounds like future of Mountain View and Google.

incompatible 7y ago

If it's so unpopular now, can you live there cheaply? I suppose there are semi-abandoned towns and villages all over non-English speaking Europe which would have cheap accommodation.

AstralStorm 7y ago
The problem is, it's not a town really. There are no services, no rural areas to farm, no cultural life and no society. It will need a major breath of life to become a town.

sandworm101 7y ago

Ugg... that theater looks like the mining base from Aliens (1986). I don't mean that it is derelict but that the architecture is similar. https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Hadley%27s_Hope https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Hadley%27s_Hope

jacobush 7y ago
Lovely

pmontra 7y ago

Crespi d'Adda, some 30 km east of Milan, so not very far away from Ivrea, has a similar history. Smaller town tough. It's a UNESCO site. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/730/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/730/