ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with two examples of individuals who played a central role in mediating American-imported information: the architect and critic Bruno Zevi and the industrialist Adriano Olivetti. On American soil, Zevi established contacts with the community of Italian refugees. Arrived in Rome at the end of July 1944 with the rank of Lieutenant of the US Army, Zevi was involved in several American initiatives in occupied Italy: one was probably the publication of Nuovo Mondo. Olivetti first expounded his views about politics and society in L'ordine politico delle comunità, a book written between 1944 and 1945, during his exile in Switzerland, in which he advanced the idea of a democratic model for society based on achieving a balance between centralized power and local autonomy. Olivetti spent most of his exile in Switzerland at Campo Universitario Italiano in Lausanne, where lectures and courses were offered both by and to the gathering community of fugitive Italian intellectuals.
