OLIVETTI’S LETTERA 22, THE ICONIC DESIGN TURNS SEVENTY

Letter 22, Olivetti’s mechanical and portable typewriter is a 1950s iconic Italian design. It has been one of the company’s most successful products. And, thanks to its functional portability and compact aesthetics, it received awards on both sides of the pond. In Italy, in 1954, in it won the ‘Compasso d’oro’ award, the first world design prize, born from the cultural intuition of Gio Ponti. Whereas in the US, the Illinois Institute of Technology chose it as the best design product of the last 100 years, in 1959. Marcello Nizzoli, Olivetti’s collaborator since 1938, designed it between 1949 and 1950 with the technical supervision of engineer Giuseppe Beccio. It condensed avant-garde design and functionality in just over eight pounds. It was sold with a cardboard or imitation leather case, which increased its portability. A lever made it possible to adjust the position of the tape, switching between black, red or no-ink. To save space, the keyboard didn’t have the numbers “1” and “0”; the capital ‘L’ and ‘O’ were to be used instead. Moreover, there weren’t any letters with accents, so those that needed it were followed by an apostrophe. Once, the Lettera 22 interpreted with an unmistakable style the tactile and auditory fascination of the era of contact and sound, the rustle of paper and the grinding of rollers. Today, the sound of its printing hammers is only a memory, but its presence is firm in many design museums, including the Moma in New York. It is also a coveted piece of furniture for collectors and enthusiasts.