The nomination of Ivrea in the UNESCO World Heritage List

Our journey begins in 2008, the year of the celebration of the centenary of the foundation of the Olivetti Company.

A National Committee was promoted by the Adriano Olivetti Foundation in collaboration with the Municipality of Ivrea and the Polytechnic of Milan. The National Committee was established by the Ministerial Decree of March 20, 2008. It was financed by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MIBACT), the Piedmont Region and the Adriano Olivetti Foundation.

During its four-years activity, the Committee consolidated its reflection about the enhancement of the modern architectural heritage of Ivrea. Thanks also to the contribution of national and international experts, it was possible to develop the prospect of nominating Ivrea as “Industrial City of the 20th Century” in the UNESCO World Heritage List. In 2009, the Adriano Olivetti Foundation was appointed by the Municipality of Ivrea to undertake the first phase of the application. It worked, with the collaboration of Ministry, to obtain the inscription in the Italian proposal list (Tentative List) of candidate sites to UNESCO World Heritage List. 

From that time, the UNESCO Office of Ministry set up a Coordination Group composed of various ministerial structures involved, the Municipality of Ivrea, the Piedmont Region and the Province of Turin (that then became a Metropolitan City), the Adriano Olivetti and the Guelpa Foundations. The Coordinating Group has also designated a Steering Committee, responsible for following the development of the operational phases of the Application. In 2016, the Italian State submitted the Nomination File and the Management Plan to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which checked its completeness.

The evaluation by ICOMOS, an UNESCO advisory body, began in 2017. Following the Evaluation Mission, which took place at the end of September 2017, a first request for additional informations was issued. After a comparison session between representatives of the Coordination Group and the ICOMOS, further additional informations was requested and subsequently delivered at the end of February 2018. 

“Ivrea Industrial City of the 20th Century” has been inscribed on the World Heritage List the 1st July 2018, during the World Heritage Committee Session in Manama (Bahrein). 

Ivrea, an outstanding Industrial city model 

During the twentieth century, Ivrea created an alternative and unique industrial city model. This was based on a social and productive system inspired by the community. In fact, the concept of “community”, as developed by Olivetti, contains human, environmental and architectural values that have made Ivrea the sample of twentieth century’s industrial city. A model of work and lifestyle that ensures the harmonious coexistence of the economic, productive and social spaces. In the period spanning from 1930 up until the death of Adriano Olivetti in 1960, Ivrea became the heart of the most advanced reflections in the industrial and socio-economic, architectural and urban areas. Olivettian thought shows itself in the outstanding quality of an exceptional set of buildings for industry and social services, which follow an alternative model compared to the traditional one. Social policies are the cornerstone of modern architectural works (which translate those concepts into reality) and urban plans that redesign the city and its territorial context. The nomination on the UNESCO World Heritage List consists of all these achievements. The nomination of “Ivrea Industrial City of the 20th Century” aims to recognize a tradition of genius, industriousness and savoir-faire of the entire Western world. However, it is also an application that differs from other similar ones on the World Heritage List, referring to three groups: company towns (such as Crespi D ‘Adda); industrial communities (Salins les Bains and New Lanark), and industrial landscapes (Derwent Valley Mills). Ivrea is an alternative answer of exceptional quality to the questions posed by the rapid evolution of the industrialization processes. It is a project in which innovative social policies are the prerequisites of modern architecture, translating these concepts into artefacts and urban plans that redesign the city and its territorial context. “Ivrea Industrial City of the 20th Century” is not a company town because it is not built ex novo, as a city-factory system. Instead, it is inserted within the urban fabric and incorporates it over a period of 30 years. Additionally, it cannot even be compared to the utopian and philanthropic industrial communities because it is the concrete and non-utopian realization of a real economic and social project that allows for an exemplary industrial development throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Finally, it cannot even be considered as an industrial landscape as it is the result of the coexistence processes of the city’s industrialization and agricultural production that also engage an original project of industrial decentralization in the surrounding territory  

Innovative architectures 

Urban architectures – buildings for production, houses, buildings for services, routes and public spaces– have been designed in a harmonious and functional way and are an outstanding example of the quality of the suggested solution and the way it is implemented. The model of “Industrial City of the 20th Century” has its heart in the axis of Via Jervis, where significant urban and territorial transformations take place and involve architects and urban planners with a broad design of the city. It starts from the original Officine Olivetti of 1896 and progresses to the extensions and connections that arose between 1939 and 1962, the buildings that housed the Study and Experience Centre and Heating Plant, the canteen, social services and kindergarten, the houses of Borgo Olivetti and the Castellamonte District, the two Office Buildings, and the West Residential Unit. 

The Property 

The Property consists of an urban and architectural ensemble characterized by 27 assets, ranging from buildings to architectural complexes, all designed by the most famous Italian architects and urban planners of the twentieth century. They have the requisites of authenticity and integrity, having substantially preserved both the architectural features of the various original projects and the external spaces, which are an integral part of the originality of the projects themselves. The buildings have remained unchanged in shape, structure and materials. The ownership of this architectural heritage is almost totally private. It is an area sufficiently extended to allow a reading of the industrial city of Ivrea. Even today, the persistence of its functions gives us an understanding of the projects and achievements that over time have substantiated this social and cultural (other than an industrial and urban) model. It is totally unique. 

The Buffer Zone 

The Buffer Zone is developed around the Property and it is an important means for the protection and conservation of the Outstanding Universal Value. Within it, there are other examples of the architectural and socio-cultural vision of the industrial city (for example, the Bellavista and Canton Vesco neighborhoods). 

Letters of support to the Candidacy

Piedmont Region
The Metropolitan City of Turin
Confindustria
Piedmont Confindustria
Canavese Confindustria
Associazione Italiana per il Patrimonio Archeologico Industriale