Calabria is among the leading regions in terms of quantity and variety of business museums. A circuit which, it must be noted, is in excellent health throughout the peninsula: an ever-increasing number of companies – large and small – are choosing to invest in cultural projects capable of communicating their values to the public, using the museum itinerary formula to tell yourself. The aim, in this case, is to convey the idea at the origin of the business, and the way in which it was chosen to carry it out; therefore the share of innovation behind a corporate challenge, its link with the territory in terms of legacy and positive social and economic impacts, the creative and educational implications of the activity, when present.
The business museums of Calabria and the SudHeritage network
And in Calabria this opportunity has been seized in recent years by companies with long corporate (and family) histories behind them, several operating in the food and wine sector – from Amarelli to Callipo, GIAS and Librandi – and all custodians of traditional processes, such as the Lanificio Leo of Soveria Mannelli (in the province of Catanzaro). A well-established and attractive system, especially since the region began to attract a “new” tourism beyond the seaside one, which has become compact and recognized in the values of a network specifically created to bring together Calabrian business museums, SudHeritage. Glimpsing the potential of the tool, the network was born to present itself as “interlocutor with institutions to strengthen existing business museums, encourage the construction of new museums by companies that hold a cultural and historical heritage to be valorised, build transversal actions for the promotion and diffusion of the network of business museums”. Not last “to testify to the business-culture equation”.
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Rubbettino on the corporate museum circuit
The last entry into the circuit once again leads to Soveria Mannelliwhere the publisher’s history began more than fifty years ago Rubbettinoready to inaugurate its corporate museum on June 14, 2024. The new space is actually the evolution of a larger cultural project, renamed PAPER, already launched in 2020, on the twentieth anniversary of the death of the founder of the publishing house, Rosario Rubbettino. Today, his sons, Marco and Florindo, lead the company, who have chosen to delve deeper into the intertwining of art, culture, nature and manufacturing.
Rubbettino and the CARTA project: the Contemporary Art Park
This is how the company path was configured, consisting not only of the nascent museum but also of a Contemporary Art Park, which can be visited by appointment, spread over 12,500 square meters in the green area surrounding the company, to exhibit the collection of permanent works by international artists periodically hosted in residence at Soveria Mannelli. The park was officially inaugurated in September 2022, coinciding with the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Rubbettino; since then the company has welcomed young artists Stefan Alber, Rachele Maistrello, Elisa Strinna And Giulio Saverio Rossiin addition to the curators Alessandro Fonte and Shawnette Poe, who have chosen to interpret the park as an ecosystem in which all the parts – the publishing and typographic world, the corporate and family history, the cultural impact of the area, the plant and animal species, the works – interact organically with each other and with the system that includes them. Field of investigation: the material link between the plant world and that of editorial/typographical production, through the transformation of cellulose into paper as a key element of publishing and typography. CARTA is also the name of the editorial series of volumes that will delve into the work of the artists hosted in the park: a monograph and a notebook will be created for each of them which tells the story of the process of developing the works.
The PAPER museum, from the invention of movable type to digital
The new museum can instead be visited inside the industrial plant, where an immersive exhibition itinerary that can count on machinery (including linotypes, large printing machines from the last century and the first desktop publishing systems), documents and interactive devices guides you to discover the printing techniques, from the first inventions – with the introduction of movable type – up to digital, not limiting itself to telling the company history, but tracing a history of the book, of the printing processes and typographical techniques, of the paper and of the materials typography support. The FabLab area is instead conceived as a laboratory of creativity, design, innovation and experimentation, open to exchange with innovators of communication, design and digital craftsmanship. Next door, a small bookshop. CARTA will also give space to exhibitions, conferences and seminars on the topics of visual culture and typography.
Livia Montagnoli
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