POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Olivetti 'Lettera 22' portable typewriter made in Glasgow

Object No. 2006/102/1

The Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter was designed by Marcello Nizzoli. Nizzoli was involved in various avant garde movements, a skilled painter, graphic artist, architect, industrial designer and exhibit architect. Nizzoli is most renowned for his design consultancy work with Olivetti, which commenced around 1939. Nizzoli became one of the instruments through which Olivetti was able to combine industrial design and the plastic arts to create new designs for its existing line of office products. These new designs appealed to a wider market than the established users and consumers of office products. Their sculptured forms were sought as solutions and devices for small businesses and domestic use. Nizzoli's designs for Olivetti were regarded by the Italian design cognoscenti as the epitome of Italian functionalist design, which sought to widen the role of industrial design within companies to encompass all aspects of product development, to strive for the achievement of a design devoid of ornament, and to produce items for consumption by the masses. The Lettera 22 reflects this approach to design. The Lettera 22 was also the subject of manufacturing and engineering improvements made by Giuseppe Beccio. The number of parts in the assembly was reduced from 3000 to 2000. The design of the Lettera 22 has received international attention including: - In 1952 New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) added graphic and industrial design to its fields of interest. Olivetti was chosen for the first monographic exhibition in the same year. Nizzoli's Lettera 22 and Lexikon 80 typewriters have since resided in the permanent collection of the MoMA (NY, NY). - The inaugural Golden Compass of 1954 in Italy. - In 1959, a jury of 100 designers formed by the Illinois Technology Institute chose Nizzoli's Lettera 22 as the first of the 100 best design products of the previous 100 years. Campbell Bickerstaff, 2006