Dalmine and its Industrial Politics Translated into Type

The research examines the entanglement of urban rationalities and industrial biopolitics in constructing company towns' identities and spatialities, providing different housing typologies for its workers. An epitome of spatial production under industrial power in the 20th century, these cities were usually founded by a single enterprise through pioneering social and economical methods in previously uncolonized terrains. The enterprise operated as employers and landlords, security enforcers, promoters of social harmony, and providers of housing, services, and goods for workers’ consumption to enhance the living conditions and health of production sites and their surroundings. This phenomenon was also prevalent in Northern Italy, where social, historical, and economic conditions favored the emergence of various company town models, as in the cases of Metanopoli, Ivrea or Crespi D’Adda. Although less documented, the city of Dalmine (located in the province of Bergamo, Italy) represents another relevant archetype of the Italian company town. The presentation will showcase three different housing typologies built between 1906 – 1961 in the company town of Dalmine and discuss the extent to which industry politics shaped the city's living conditions. Through the intersection of historical, business archival, and urban research, my work dialogues with the unearthing traces that reflect the industry's power in Dalminese territory. These traces are the political projects managed by the industry and the series of infrastructures affirming the company town as a typological question. As a growing machine working in favor of regulating the use of urban space in the name of profit, this rationale transformed the peasant man into a new modern subject with new behaviors, rhythms, and moral ideals, reproducing discipline inside and outside the factory. For instance, the agenda of company towns corroborated this process, by developing that mentality, using labor power as the vital energy to construct an empire.