ARMANDO DADÒ EDITORE Tipografia Stazione SA

Armando Dadò's publishing house has published more than a thousand books. The catalog, which has been compiled since 1961, includes works covering a wide range of subjects: from literature to art, history to politics, customs to ethnography, current affairs to natural sciences.

Many of the volumes published, particularly in recent years, are linked to the region, exploring its various aspects; a reality that the Locarno-based publishing house has sought and continues to seek to promote not only within regional and cantonal borders but also beyond, raising awareness of the specific characteristics of our region beyond the Gotthard Pass and in Italy.

To find the origins of the company, we must go back to the summer of 1961, when a group of friends decided to join forces and pool their funds to set up a new printing company in Locarno. It was officially founded on July 22 of that year, the day on which a limited company was established with a share capital of 150,000 francs. Its board of directors included Plinio Martini, a writer from Valmaggia who, a few years later, would become a leading figure in the literary scene of Italian-speaking Switzerland.

The start was cautious: in the early years, the business was essentially a small printing company with less than half a dozen employees. The company was located in a couple of rooms in the old Palazzo Pax in Muralto, right in front of the railway station (it was because of this proximity that it was given the name Tipografia Stazione). The first jobs were commercial prints, set in lead and printed using traditional methods that are now a thing of the past.

However, printing alone was not enough for the owner: he discovered a passion for books. Armando Dadò entered the publishing world through an acquaintance who would later become a close friend: the poet and engraver Giovanni Bianconi, who asked him to publish his book on regional ethnography. The gratification he felt in 1965 when Artigianati scomparsi (Lost Crafts) was published encouraged the young printer from Valmaggia in his hopes and persuaded him to embark on a path that was certainly difficult, fraught with pitfalls and difficulties, but also full of lively satisfactions, human contacts, and intimate commonalities.

Of fundamental importance was his meeting with Piero Bianconi, Giovanni's brother: his Occhi sul Ticino (Eyes on the Ticino) and Ticino com'era (The Ticino as it was) were works which, beyond their almost unexpected sales success, confirmed Dadò in his cultural intentions.

 

Cultural activity, civic engagement

During the 1970s, the publishing house's focus became clearer, with certain specific themes marking a large part of its book production during those years. Above all, there was participation in the civic debate of that period, when the people of Ticino became aware of the "wounds" inflicted on their land by almost thirty years of reckless exploitation of natural resources, uncontrolled urbanization, and the sell-off of the territory. The works of Piero Bianconi and other authors clearly show the need to recover and defend a heritage of rural civilization that had been endangered (if not already largely compromised) by the deleterious economic and social dynamics that had been triggered in Ticino since the end of World War II. Interest in history, events, and aspects of the past is confirmed by the publishing success of several other works that appeared in those years: suffice it to mention Giulio Rossi and Eligio Pometta's Storia del Cantone Ticino (History of the Canton of Ticino), which sold 20,000 copies.

By that time, the Locarno-based publishing house had established solid roots. At the same time, the printing industry underwent a veritable technological revolution, which led to the replacement of lead with new photoreproduction techniques and, above all, the advent of information technology. This strengthened the publishing business, and publications began to be organized in a program consistent with the company's guidelines.

This is how, in the early 1980s , the series "Il Castagno" and "L'Officina" were launched : the former featured works by authors of the past, while the latter was reserved for studies conducted according to the most modern research criteria. In particular , in "Il Castagno," Dadò immediately began to offer works by authors such as Karl Viktor von Bonstetten, Hans Rudolf Schinz, and Otto Weiss, whose translation and publication would make a fundamental contribution to cantonal historiography.

Horizons broaden

From the second half of the 1980s onwards, the commitment to translation grew, opening up new and interesting prospects for the Locarno-based publishing house: while continuing to promote the cultural heritage of Italian-speaking Switzerland, Dadò also turned its attention to national history and literature. The spectrum thus broadened, so much so that works of wider scope overlapped with topics of regional interest, attracting the attention of the Italian press and public.

The 1990s were marked by a series of initiatives that further defined Dadò's cultural direction: these included the collaboration with Pro Grigioni Italiano, which led to the creation of the series of the same name, the publication of the three volumes of Introduzione al paesaggio naturale (Introduction to the Natural Landscape) and the nine volumes of Atlante dell'edilizia rurale (Atlas of Rural Building) - co-published with the Cantonal Museum of Natural History and the Higher Technical School of the Canton of Ticino respectively - which are among the most important works to have appeared in Ticino in recent years.

Over the course of the decade, several new series have been launched. The "I Classici" series, edited by Carlo Carena, already boasts a dozen masterpieces of our civilization in its catalog, including the Book of Job, Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance, Erasmus of Rotterdam's Lament for Peace, Manzoni's History of the Column of Infamy, as well as the new translation of the Gospels, edited by a group of distinguished Italian specialists, an edition that has received widespread and positive acclaim in the Italian cultural world.

The "Alea" series has also attracted attention and interest, bringing together collections by poets of undisputed value such as Piero Bigongiari, Jacques Dupin, Neuro Bonifazi, Fabio Muggiasca, Dubravko Pusek, Gilberto Isella, Ismail Kadaré, and Giovanni Bonalumi. In particular, the collections of the latter two authors have received significant recognition from Italian critics: Kadaré with his work Le spiagge d'inverno(Winter Beaches), which won the Brianza Region Prize in 1996; Bonalumi with La traversata del Gottardo(The Crossing of the Gotthard), a series of poetic translations from French and German that was also awarded the Premio Città di Monselice (City of Monselice Prize), the most prestigious award for translation in Italy.

But the increased editorial commitment has resulted in several other initiatives: this is the case of the series "Il Cardellino" (The Goldfinch) - which features literary works by Swiss and foreign authors chosen according to criteria of variety and originality - and that of "I Sottili" ( The Subtle Ones ), which collects texts that are minor in terms of editorial form but of acute and penetrating intellectual depth.

In 1998, on the 150th anniversary of the founding of the federal state, the series entitled "I Cristalli - Helvetia nobilis" was launched, dedicated to works of fiction and non-fiction, never before translated or no longer available, by mainly Swiss writers in German, French, and Romansh. Italian-speaking readers have been offered or are currently being offered masterpieces such as La Svizzera. Storia di un popolo felice (Switzerland: History of a Happy People) by Denis de Rougemont and Il Santo (The Saint) by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Il dolore dei contadini (The Pain of the Peasants) by Corinna Bille, Adamo ed Eva (Adam and Eve) by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, Dal Diario berlinese (From the Berlin Diary) by Max Frisch, and texts by many other writers of great literary depth such as Walser, Chappaz, Muschg, Tocqueville, Gotthelf, Jung, Dürrenmatt, Zweig, Mme de Staël, and others. With Peter von Matt's Switzerland: Between Origins and Progress, the series reached the milestone of fifty published titles, and since then, the activity has continued with renewed vigor. The intention is that these texts contribute to a reflection on Swiss identity and the long journey that led to the formation of the current state.

Among the latest additions are two series that are bringing great satisfaction to the publisher. One is La Rondine, which brings together the best of Swiss-Italian fiction from the 19th and 20th centuries. It was launched in 2000 with a new edition of Felice Filippini's Signore dei poveri morti (Lord of the Poor Dead), followed by the publication of Lungo la strada(Along the Road), an original collection of prose by Anna Gnesa, Requiem per zia Domenica ( Requiem for Aunt Domenica) by Plinio Martini, and La cava della sabbia (The Sand Quarry) by Pio Ortelli, as well as new editions of Albero genealogico (Family Tree) by Piero Bianconi and La voce del padre (The Voice of the Father) by Ugo Canonica, and the unpublished work by Remo Beretta, I giorni e la morte(The Days and Death). The second was launched in 2008 with La baronessa delle isole(The Baroness of the Islands) by Daniela Calastri-Winzenried. It is "La Betulla" ( The Birch Tree ) which, following the example of this pioneer plant, gives unestablished writers the opportunity to present themselves to the reading public.

The latest addition is the series "Le Sfide della Svizzera" (The Challenges of Switzerland ), edited by political scientist Oscar Mazzoleni, which aims to reflect on the Swiss reality based on contributions from specialists in the field.

Not just books

The diversification of its publishing activities has led Dadò to enter the world of periodicals. It did so by launching two regional magazines: La Rivista del Locarnese e valli in 1994 and Il Mendrisiotto in 1999, which over the years have become well established in the local social fabric, acquiring their own identity and authority. In the wake of the success of the two magazines, the last few years have seen the birth of two new publications, La Turrita, aimed at readers in the Bellinzona and Magadino areas, and Il Ceresio, a periodical for the Lugano area.

Present and future

In the limited market of Ticino publishing, the book production of the Dadò publishing house is exceptional in many ways: today, almost thirty volumes are published each year under its brand. A brand that is a guarantee of quality, both in terms of the cultural level of the publications and the graphic excellence of the product. It is no coincidence that some of the works published in Locarno have been awarded the "Premio Lago Maggiore" prize and that others have won the competition organized by the jury of "I più bei libri svizzeri dell'anno" (The most beautiful Swiss books of the year), sponsored by the Federal Department of Home Affairs.

But other awards have also recognized Dadò's work: in 1991, on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the Confederation, the Locarno-based publisher was awarded the printing and publication of the Dictionary of Swiss Literature; and even greater prestige came to the company with the Italian edition of the Dizionario Storico della Svizzera(Historical Dictionary of Switzerland), a monumental work of research that began in 2002 and was completed in 2014 with the thirteenth volume. This was a considerable undertaking for the publishing house, both in terms of the preparation and printing of the volumes and their promotion and distribution.

Now more than half a century old, the Locarno-based publishing house finds itself at a stage in its life that, if compared to a human life, corresponds to maturity. A time when experience and a full awareness of its own identity lead it to devote its best energies to a goal and a challenge.

This is what the publishing house will set out to do in the coming years: continuing to offer readers works of value and quality, capturing the most important voices in fiction and non-fiction from Italian-speaking Switzerland, offering translations of equally significant works from other national cultures, and finally promoting our cultural specificities beyond regional boundaries, in Italy and Europe.

Services offered

Tipografia Stazione SA has been operating in the Locarno area for over 50 years. Thanks to state-of-the-art machinery and trained, skilled staff, we are able to meet even the most specific needs of our customers.
Among the most requested services:
• Brochures and leaflets
•    Magazines
• Booklets and books
•    Envelopes and letter paper
• Business cards
•    Notepads
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