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Luigi Cosenza (architect,
1905-84)
 German author
Günther Grass
was on Italian TV the other
night. He remarked how he still doesn’t write with a computer, but
prefers his
old and very tactile, loud Olivetti typewriter;
he lamented that since
Olivetti
has gone belly up, he has trouble getting typewriter ribbons. The
moderator
assured him that after the program, he would certainly be inundated
with
ribbons —and maybe even entire typewriters— from Italian well-wishers.
I remember when Olivetti had a factory in
nearby Pozzuoli. It was part of the then
still
optimistic industrial profile of Pozzuoli
and adjacent Bagnoli. Then, along came
post-industrialization, an earthquake (and
subsequent large-scale abandonment of the center of Pozzuoli) and modern computer
technology all
conspiring to close the Olivetti factory around 1980, not too long
after it was
completed. It wasn’t torn down or anything; it was nicely recycled.
Today the
place is still called the “ex-Olivetti” and the vast premises have
become a
small post-industrial city unto themselves: electronic print-shops,
conference
halls, shops, firms engaged in information technology, etc.
The Olivetti factory in Pozzuoli was the
work of Luigi Cosenza, the
prominent Neapolitan architect. He was from a family of engineers and
studied
engineering and architecture at the University of Naples,
graduating in
1928. He has some smaller buildings in Naples and major ones elsewhere
(the
Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, for example), but in Naples his two
“monuments”
are (1) the Olivetti factory in Pozzuoli, built on the slopes of an
extint
volcano overlooking the bay; it was built between 1951-54 with
additions going on until
1970; (2) the main building of the Engineering Department (photo,
above) of the University of Naples
(built
between 1955-72, located in Fuorigrotta at Piazzale Tecchio near
the San
Paolo soccer stadium and the main entrance to the Mostra
d’Oltremare).
Cosenza was also a
contributor to the major plans to rebuild the port area of Naples
after the devastations of WWII as
well as a shaper of the post-war planning and
construction of large-scale prefabricated housing in many of the
suburbs of Naples.
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