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“PASTA CITY” - THE BARILLA PLANT IN PEDRIGNANO (PARMA)
In 1940 Riccardo Barilla commissioned a ‘bird’s eye view’ from Aerostudio Borghi of Como of the Via Veneto (today Viale Barilla) factory in Parma. The view is a huge plate (80 x 170 cm) now held in the company’s archive that documents the phase of greatest expansion before World War II; it is typical of the 19th century landscape views that became popular following the invention of the balloon.
Views of cities became very popular and, following the Industrial Revolution, also of individual factories or industrial districts, which were always shown without the surrounding buildings or roads to give greater impact to the monumentality of the site.
These pictures were then turned into postcards, as in the case of Barilla, which were sent out as advertisements.
This practice gave rise to the idea, on the 125th anniversary of the company, to produce a modern view of the Pedrignano site, which, in 2002 became the only operational factory in the commune of Parma, to ‘tell the story of Pasta City’.
The decision to have the view drawn, in the era of photography and advertising images, should not be a surprise. Only a drawing allows certain details to be perceptible and, at the same time, to focus the attention of the observer selectively, by neglecting unimportant details.The new plate (110 x 250 cm) has been drawn by Loreno Confortini, a Modenese draughtsman of great experience in the field of historical and architectural views, and someone who has worked for nationally important magazines. Following three months of work, a flight over the site and numerous on-the-spot examinations, he has produced the drawing of ‘Pedrignano Farm’.
The view was then updated, by the same author, in 2018, adding new buildings and structures built in recent years.
A complex operation that wants to pay homage, fifty years after the complex came into operation, to all those who have contributed to “building” that great “quality machine” that is Pedrignano.