Culture e impresa n. 1

Interview with Giancarlo Gonizzi (G.G.) – Person-in-charge of Barilla Historical Archives – 26th February 2001 (updated 15th September 2004)
by Maria Chiara Corazza (M.C.C.)

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Reconstructing an archives
The archives today
Classifying a wide variety of records
The archives collects, preserves and communicates
Business culture organizations

G.G.: Barilla’s business started in the 1800’s with a bakery in Via Repubblica, in the very centre of Parma In 1910 the business grew and moved outside the city walls (that no longer exist) to where we are now conducting this interview in Viale Barilla (Barilla Boulevard). In this place the first Barilla industrial plant was established, made up of a pasta factory and a bake house, in two different buildings. During the 1900’s, the complex gradually enlarged until the end of the thirties. In 1940 the Barilla family took over and built up the whole area, which now belongs to them.
During the post-war years, the old buildings were pulled down; during the fifties a new factory was built and finally in 1999 almost all the existing buildings were demolished to make room for famous architect Renzo Piano’s project, a structure which is open to the town, while retaining its distinct original character. The project includes a hotel, a Conference Centre, a big shopping mall with an 8 cinema multiplex and also the seat of the Barilla Academy, with the classrooms for courses, and the gastronomic library.

M.C.C.: When did the business start to show interest into the company history and subsequently, its archives ?

G.G.: Barilla began to think about its own history in the very moment that the company was about to be taken over. In 1970, due to a series of social and financial causes, Gianni and Pietro Barilla sold off their firm to the American multinational W R Grace & Co.. The new factory (the old one was on Viale Barilla) of Pedrignano, located next to the Milan-Salerno Sole motorway had been opened only two years before (1968). The debts for that new and ultramodern construction were heavy, and since Gianni Barilla intended to give up his part of the business, Pietro didn’t have sufficient resources to buy out his brother’s capital share. At that point, the firm was handed over, but Pietro kept 1% of the shares and the right of pre-emption, which allowed him to buy back the firm in 1979. When he came back, he promptly applied himself to investments, product enhancement and the brand-new Mulino Bianco line.
At some point, following requests from both inside and outside the company, we realized that a firm that had begun operating over a hundred years ago, didn’t have any formally written history. Journalists were asking for information but the records about the firm’s history no longer existed, because when Grace took over the business, the main core of the former business archives had been destroyed or lost. Of course this wasn’t the first priority for Grace who was more concerned with building for the future. Anyway, in the mid-80’s, the need arose for recovering a part of Barilla’s historical patrimony. In 1987 then, on the initiative of the chairman office, the Historical Archives Project started. The project aimed to recover this patrimony through the documents inside the firm, scattered among the offices, but also through the copying of those materials in third party archives such as suppliers, advertising agencies and public or private archives.
So, that’s how the archives came into being; in 1987 with about sixty photographs recovered accidentally. Now the Barilla Archives have over forty two thousand inventoried documents. In 1997 they were declared archives of remarkable historical interest by the Soprintendenza (bureau of cultural assets). Through careful and detailed research and recovery (still ongoing), some basic series have been reconstructed like advertising, for example: press advertisements on daily newspapers, magazines or billposting, but also broadcast advertising on radio and television. Other series too have been restored as well; for instance the launching of new products. These particular characteristics of the Barilla Archives, which I would call an «archives of reconstruction», constitute their configuration, but, at the same time, their limit.
In our case, we had to recover single documents, strips and other bits and pieces. Then it was a matter of coming up with a classifying configuration and logic for reasons of order, convenience and, of course, preservation. So we can find the archives structured in an extremely handy and practical way, even for those who enter for the first time, simply because it resembles more the classification of a library rather than of a traditional archives. This implies certain limits, but also convenience. Of course, where single record groups with their inner arrangement were found, we chose to keep them as they were, obviously using the normal standards of arrangement and shelving, while trying to respect their former internal configuration.

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