XIV International Exposition of Preserves in Parma, 1959

Parma, XIV International Exposition of Preserves and Packaging. 20th-30th September 1959.

Barilla takes part in the XIV International Exposition with a setup that occupies the entire external façade of the wide temporary expositional pavilion destined to the participants of the traditional Parmesan series of exhibitions, projected by the architect Luigi Sassi ⁽¹⁾.

The design, that this time wasn’t by Carboni, occurs inside the Company, with the building contribution of Medardo Monica supported by the son Ruggero and the intervention – that will be crucial – of the architect Guglielmo Lusignoli (Parma, 1920-2003).

The first idea of the positioning of two high boxes widely far from each other wasn’t convincing. The subsequent intervention of the architect Lusignoli, even if it maintained in the composition the recalled elements, managed to highlight skillfully the preexisting layout including a metal arch of connection between the two solids, that start in this way to be part of the structural complex, of which a scale model would be realized, today preserved at Barilla Historical Archive.
The stand remarks very clearly the references to a Fellini setting: a long straight flowerpot divided chromatically by white and light blue segments with the slogan “With Barilla Pasta it’s always Sunday”.
In the final parts of this floral “aisle”, there are two “evergreen” flowerbeds hiding a contiguous cement base of static and aesthetic function. In fact, for linking the two extremities of the flowerbed with an aerial bridge, a rectangular arch made of steel is placed for sustaining three gigantic Barilla pasta boxes.
So far, the overall of the external part of the exposition allows seeing behind a grid of iron tubes a fancy garden composed of arches of leafy branches, cypresses, poplar springs, statues and metal benches. In addition: green aisles and multicolored compositions placed at the center and by the sides of an improvised garden that presents a vague XVIII century footprint which takes possession of the advertising claim known everywhere as: “With Barilla Pasta is always Sunday”.

This considerably good result of advertising technique is reached skillfully overcoming the usual schemes of the traditional stand, melting elements typical of claims with the ones of furniture which, in this case, acquires pronounced urban aesthetic features.