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The editorial project
The Authors
Lamarque Coupland Tattersall e DeSalle Pievani
Illustrations by Jean-Michel Tixier A breakfast with, five generations compared, by Alessio Viola
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Annual report
The Editorial Project

A Breakfast with, five generations side-by-side

by
Alessio
Viola
Alessio Viola

Alessio Viola, from Rome, is an Italian journalist, television presenter and the historical face of SkyTg24. He began his career as a print media journalist. In 2005 he arrived at SkyTg24 directed by Emilio Carelli, first as daytime presenter, then in prime time, taking care over the years of the Edicola and the specials of the all news channel.  He presented the 2010 edition of Earth Day live from Circo Massimo, and in 2015 Extra Factor on Skyuno with Mara Maionchi.
 In July 2019 he commemorated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing for SkyTg24 with a live special for 8 hours. In 2020 and 2021 he made two seasons of the series Venti20 I vent’anni del 2000 for Tv8, a pop journey through facts, protagonists and customs from 2000 to 2020. In the autumn of 2020, again for Tv8, he hosts Ogni Mattina, a morning show on Skytg24’s Timeline, an afternoon show. He is passionate about politics, TV and communication and has a large following on the Net. ’Sarò bre’, published by People, is the title of the book that collects his best tweets.

Our years

What connects the Beatles to Taylor Swift and the Italian film For Love and Gold to The Lord of the Rings? Human experience, from listening to an old vinyl on a record player to downloading the latest track from a streaming app. There is a place that brings together those with fond memories and those whose future lies in front to them. In between are the many nuances made up of years, dreams, hopes and different ages. This is the workplace, where employing people of various ages is routine for a large company. In our daily lives, generations brush up against each other, make comparisons, team up and even challenge each other. All this happens fast but it runs in the background. This is the reason we wanted to spend a day, away from the hubbub and distractions of work, exploring how distant standpoints merge in everyday life. We chose a timeless place, the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, a 15th-century villa inside Pirelli Headquarters, to bring five generations who work together here around a table in order to celebrate and film that most beautiful of meetings, that of our years.

Pirelli Generations, from Traditionalists to Z

Five guests joined our intergenerational breakfast. They have been witnesses to profound changes over the last 50 years. The era of desks and typewriters gave way to computers that brought new dreams and ways of doing things that, yes, were different, but not so far apart. Our line-up: Maurizio, the Traditionalist, who has been at Pirelli since 1970; Giuseppina, the Baby Boomer, who has always been involved in innovation teams; Daniele, Generation X, head of Business Control and a father, sporting a waistcoat and tie but with a rock and roll heart; Francesca, who works in HR at Pirelli, a member of Generation Y or a ‘Millennial’, familiar with computers but not a child of the internet, and finally Andrea, Gen Z, our 100% digital native who works in Corporate Affairs and Governance, for whom the smartphone is ubiquitous.

The Journey

They tell us the story of a journey, inside and outside Pirelli. How the dreams of eighteen-year-olds differed in different eras. How times changed, how some eras were serene, others uncertain. Attitudes, dreams and the sense of belonging also changed, as did musical tastes and fashion styles. Between Maurizio and Andrea, carbon paper was cast aside in favour e-mails, long-playing records left the stage to streaming, dress shirts became T-shirts, the haste to become an adult was overridden by the illusion of never becoming one. Between Maurizio and Andrea, by way of Giuseppina, Daniele and Francesca, our shelves emptied of the old media. Out went vinyl, CDs, cameras, road maps, watches, alarm clocks and typewriters, now all contained within a smartphone, which has brought its own concerns and fear for the future, much greater for Andrea than it was for Maurizio. Zoomers must now contend with the boundless infinity of the Internet rather than the better defined and perhaps more reassuring borders of the previous generations. Maybe some of us would like to be Andrea, listening to Taylor Swift in his twenties. But Andrea does not have Francesca’s fond memories of the Backstreet Boys, nor of Metallica, which Daniele still listens to, no Mogol and Battisti songs that Giuseppina loves, and not even Maurizio’s Pooh. In the lives of Maurizio, Andrea, Giuseppina, Daniele and Francesca, the world has witnessed the great changes that have followed the advent of algorithms, social media and the digital revolution. Only to discover something precious. When asked, "Which app could you never do without?", all five gave the same answer: the green one with the blue ticks to tell you the message has been read, the one we communicate with every day. The bridge needed to connect us, to give us human contact, to share. Basically, what happens every day. Rather like that phrase ‘Happiness is only real if shared’.