Things to See in Ivrea | 2 Monuments & Landmarks

All the monuments in Ivrea

The landmarks and masterpieces worth planning a day around.

The glass ribbons of Olivetti's Officine ICO along Via Jervis, Ivrea

Ivrea, città industriale del XX secoloUNESCOIvrea, industrial city of the 20th centuryOlivetti's modernist factories, Adriano Olivetti's Movimento Comunità, worker housing and social servicesIvrea, Industrial City of the 20th Century is a UNESCO listed ensemble built by Olivetti, the typewriter and computer manufacturer, as the physical expression of an idea: that architecture, community services and good design could make industrial work humane rather than grinding. Across 27 buildings and complexes spanning the municipalities of Ivrea and Banchette, modernist factories sit alongside nurseries, canteens, a residential district and social services Olivetti funded for its own workers, guided by the utopian social philosophy of Adriano Olivetti's Movimento Comunità. The result reads less like a company town than a built argument about what capitalism owed to the people who made it work. A visitor center in the historic Portineria del Pino gatehouse on Via Jervis, with a free bilingual audioguide and interactive map making the dispersed site legible for a first-time visitor on foot.Plan the visit

Castello di MasinoHidden GemMasino CastleValperga family castle, 1,400-tree hornbeam labyrinth, landscaped park, FAI propertyMasino Castle crowns a morainic hill at the edge of the Ivrea plain, in the village of Caravino, and was held for the best part of a thousand years by the Valperga di Masino family, who claimed descent from Arduin, Italy’s first king. The keep is documented from 1070, and later generations turned the fortress into a noble residence with frescoed rooms, a library and eighteenth-century apartments. Around it spreads a landscaped park with a hornbeam labyrinth of about 1,400 trees, one of the largest in Italy. FAI, Italy’s national trust, has cared for the castle since 1988, and the park makes it an easy half-day out from Turin or Milan.

The Ivrea guide

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Monuments a day trip away, elsewhere in Piedmont.

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