Beyond the Factory Town. Sustainable New Uses and Cultural Continuity of Olivetti’s Architectural Heritage in Ivrea, Italy

Adaptive reuse is increasingly central to the conservation and enhancement of twentieth-century architectural heritage, where contemporary functions and regulatory requirements must be reconciled with architectural and cultural values. This study investigates how these demands are reconciled in four buildings of different scales, spatial configurations, and original functions within the UNESCO World Heritage site “Ivrea, Industrial City of the 20th Century”. A qualitative multiple-case study was carried out through archival and bibliographic research, architectural drawings, technical documentation, direct observation, and interviews. For each case study, the original configuration (T0) was systematically compared with the post-reuse current configuration (T1). The resulting transformations were assessed through a common interdisciplinary framework comprising eight indicators related to spatial and functional adaptability, social and urban impacts, heritage integrity and conservation, and environmental and technological performance. The cross-case analysis identified recurring strategies and context-specific differences in the adaptive reuse process. The findings suggest that continued use of contemporary heritage buildings depends not only on the preservation of their material fabric, but also on the capacity of reuse interventions to accommodate new or renewed programs without undermining the buildings’ spatial structure, constructional logic, architectural identity, and relationship with their wider urban context. The study therefore conceptualizes cultural continuity as a multidimensional condition encompassing material, spatial, functional, social, and territorial dimensions, and provides an operational framework for critically evaluating adaptive reuse interventions in modern architectural heritage.