The City
Takes Centre Stage in the
Company’s Communication
A Collection of Iconographic Testimonies from Our Historical Archive on the Intense Bond between Pirelli and Urban Culture
Pirelli, the City, a Vision. In this third chapter of our story about the intense relationship between Pirelli and the city, we explore the realm of visual communication. Through photography and advertising campaigns, the company shows itself and its products as part of an urban landscape filled with meaning.
In “Pirelli, the City, a Vision”, the first article in this analysis, we saw how the bond between Pirelli and the city of Milan became a defining feature of the company’s identity, with “Milano” becoming part of the name of both the company and its products, “leaving a mark on the creation of its history and imagery”. The next step—which we examine here—is the integration of the image of the city into the company’s visual communication, beginning with depictions of its factories. The Milan plants, in particular, are shown as part of the urban setting, as we see in the poster for the installation of the Museo Storico delle Industrie Pirelli. Created by Domenico Bonamini, it appeared as Lo stabilimento di Milano-città (“The Factory in the City of Milan”) and was made to celebrate Pirelli’s fiftieth anniversary in 1922.
As for the visual communication of products, it was in the 1950s that the city became a co-star in many advertising campaigns. These were times of rapid urban transformation, driven by industrialisation and a surge in urbanisation—a theme we previously explored on our website in “Pirelli and the City of the Future”. Against this backdrop, Pirelli products—especially tyres and clothing—were reimagined as essential items for city life. A notable example is a 1950 photograph taken in the Piazza del Duomo in Milan for an advertisement featuring Pirelli’s raincoat for traffic wardens. In 1952, Franco Grignani’s advertisement for the Pirelli Stelvio tyre paired a picture of a city with the concept of safety: “Stelvio, the tyre that holds the road”. In 1957, Erberto Carboni’s advertising campaign for the Rolle Stelvio Cinturato tyre presented a message that combined the concept of travelling by car with that of city tourism, highlighting the comfort of urban exploration: “Milan is not just business—it has a hidden history”.
The 1960s brought splendid new imagery with the Pirelli Confezioni catalogues. Some of the finest pictures were Ugo Mulas’s iconic photographs for the La Moda e il Grattacielo catalogue of 1959, designed by Bob Noorda, which captured breath-taking views of Milan as the Pirelli Tower and its construction site were reshaping the city’s skyline. The Pirelli Confezioni 1961-62 catalogue flew to Paris, with shots like the one for Women’s waterproof coat, Dora line, which embodies the style, the elegance and the spirit of Paris.
Moving on to look at the 1970s and to the audio-visual section of our Historical Archive, we find a series of Carosello television commercials called “La nostra vita sulle strade” (Our Life on the Roads), directed by Roberto Gavioli. These 1-minute-and-50-second commercials generally show paradoxical situations on the roads, or in our case on city streets, with a fair dose of humour. Here, the city emerges in its most chaotic form, with Pirelli tyres solving problems and easing complexities.
The link between Pirelli, its products, and urban life becomes increasingly evident—not only in terms of practicality and safety but also in terms of style, both aesthetic and as a way of life.
By the 1990s, the city had taken on new meaning in Pirelli’s first global campaign, the award-winning “Power is nothing without control” campaign by Young & Rubicam. In the iconic 1995 commercial featuring Carl Lewis, the most recognisable landmarks of New York provide a dramatic backdrop for the action. Later versions introduced other metropolises, such as Rio de Janeiro, with an unforgettable Ronaldo standing atop the Corcovado, taking the place of Christ the Redeemer. We had entered the era of globalisation: cities once again took centre stage, as symbols of interconnectedness, hubs in a vast global network, and settings where relationships were forged, such as those between businesses and creatives in the world of graphics, design and photography.
On 4 March, the Pirelli Foundation devoted a workshop to this relationship, which has been very much alive for over 150 years, under the title: “Design, Visual Communication, and the City: Promoting Company Archives” for high schools, academies and universities, as part of the Milano MuseoCity 2025 initiative. It was an opportunity to examine the rich iconographic and documentary heritage of a company that has transformed communication into a history of art and of the city, exploring urban customs and lifestyles with a vision of modernity that balances functionality and aesthetic research.
A Collection of Iconographic Testimonies from Our Historical Archive on the Intense Bond between Pirelli and Urban Culture
Pirelli, the City, a Vision. In this third chapter of our story about the intense relationship between Pirelli and the city, we explore the realm of visual communication. Through photography and advertising campaigns, the company shows itself and its products as part of an urban landscape filled with meaning.
In “Pirelli, the City, a Vision”, the first article in this analysis, we saw how the bond between Pirelli and the city of Milan became a defining feature of the company’s identity, with “Milano” becoming part of the name of both the company and its products, “leaving a mark on the creation of its history and imagery”. The next step—which we examine here—is the integration of the image of the city into the company’s visual communication, beginning with depictions of its factories. The Milan plants, in particular, are shown as part of the urban setting, as we see in the poster for the installation of the Museo Storico delle Industrie Pirelli. Created by Domenico Bonamini, it appeared as Lo stabilimento di Milano-città (“The Factory in the City of Milan”) and was made to celebrate Pirelli’s fiftieth anniversary in 1922.
As for the visual communication of products, it was in the 1950s that the city became a co-star in many advertising campaigns. These were times of rapid urban transformation, driven by industrialisation and a surge in urbanisation—a theme we previously explored on our website in “Pirelli and the City of the Future”. Against this backdrop, Pirelli products—especially tyres and clothing—were reimagined as essential items for city life. A notable example is a 1950 photograph taken in the Piazza del Duomo in Milan for an advertisement featuring Pirelli’s raincoat for traffic wardens. In 1952, Franco Grignani’s advertisement for the Pirelli Stelvio tyre paired a picture of a city with the concept of safety: “Stelvio, the tyre that holds the road”. In 1957, Erberto Carboni’s advertising campaign for the Rolle Stelvio Cinturato tyre presented a message that combined the concept of travelling by car with that of city tourism, highlighting the comfort of urban exploration: “Milan is not just business—it has a hidden history”.
The 1960s brought splendid new imagery with the Pirelli Confezioni catalogues. Some of the finest pictures were Ugo Mulas’s iconic photographs for the La Moda e il Grattacielo catalogue of 1959, designed by Bob Noorda, which captured breath-taking views of Milan as the Pirelli Tower and its construction site were reshaping the city’s skyline. The Pirelli Confezioni 1961-62 catalogue flew to Paris, with shots like the one for Women’s waterproof coat, Dora line, which embodies the style, the elegance and the spirit of Paris.
Moving on to look at the 1970s and to the audio-visual section of our Historical Archive, we find a series of Carosello television commercials called “La nostra vita sulle strade” (Our Life on the Roads), directed by Roberto Gavioli. These 1-minute-and-50-second commercials generally show paradoxical situations on the roads, or in our case on city streets, with a fair dose of humour. Here, the city emerges in its most chaotic form, with Pirelli tyres solving problems and easing complexities.
The link between Pirelli, its products, and urban life becomes increasingly evident—not only in terms of practicality and safety but also in terms of style, both aesthetic and as a way of life.
By the 1990s, the city had taken on new meaning in Pirelli’s first global campaign, the award-winning “Power is nothing without control” campaign by Young & Rubicam. In the iconic 1995 commercial featuring Carl Lewis, the most recognisable landmarks of New York provide a dramatic backdrop for the action. Later versions introduced other metropolises, such as Rio de Janeiro, with an unforgettable Ronaldo standing atop the Corcovado, taking the place of Christ the Redeemer. We had entered the era of globalisation: cities once again took centre stage, as symbols of interconnectedness, hubs in a vast global network, and settings where relationships were forged, such as those between businesses and creatives in the world of graphics, design and photography.
On 4 March, the Pirelli Foundation devoted a workshop to this relationship, which has been very much alive for over 150 years, under the title: “Design, Visual Communication, and the City: Promoting Company Archives” for high schools, academies and universities, as part of the Milano MuseoCity 2025 initiative. It was an opportunity to examine the rich iconographic and documentary heritage of a company that has transformed communication into a history of art and of the city, exploring urban customs and lifestyles with a vision of modernity that balances functionality and aesthetic research.
