Since 2002, the premises of the former Silma have hosted the municipal offices of Rivoli, a real revolution in the habits of the rebels, in their relationship with the administrative institution of the city. The property, officially acquired by the Municipality on October 9, 1998 with the aim of transferring all the municipal offices located in different buildings in the area, consists of various multi-storey high-rise buildings, built at different times between the 50s and 60s. In the period preceding the purchase from the Municipality, the building was occupied only partially by the Elcat company, a legal and administrative, accounting processing center, technological laboratory, electronic design center and mechanical laboratory: the parts of the building used were substantially those renovated in 1969 and in 1988. As evidence of the importance achieved over the years by Silma, the imposing size of the property remains: 30,480 square meters of cadastral area divided into numerous buildings of different shapes which occupy a large area delimited to the north by Corso Francia, to the east partly by Via Dora Ripariae partly from private properties, south from Corso Einaudi and west from other private properties.

What had Silma been and what had it represented for the city of Rivoli? Silma is a winning achievement: the image of success, also accentuated by the particular architectural structure, certainly at the forefront, in its heyday. The history of Silma starts ideally in the late 1950s, when the economic boom began to make itself felt: the physiognomy of the city was rapidly changing, with the birth of many small factories along the axis of Corso Francia and the arrival, increasingly massive, of immigrants from Veneto and the south. In 1959, a new company opened in this area: the "Filma", as it was initially called, a small company masterpiece by two private individuals, Canelli and Salino, who moved to this area, foreseeing the large possibility of expansion also from the constructive point of view, a their small company, Cirse, born in Turin, based in via Giolitti, which produced projectors for 8 mm cine film. The photographic sector was in full expansion at the time: the cinematographic sector is still to be discovered. And it is precisely in anticipation of this possibility that Canelli and Salino move their company to Cascine Vica. The company - writes Bruno Faussone in 1965 - has 300 employees, mostly women, 70%. Faussone describes it as a valid example of the process of industrialization aimed at the position occupied at European level among the companies in its sector: it is the second in Europe. The company name changes and the initial trademark "Filma" (already registered apparently by Bell & Howell) is changed to Silma. It is the beginning of a golden era.

New prestigious models immediately increase the fame of this small company that starts to hire and soon sees its fame rise all over Europe. To the point of arousing the interest of a large German industry giant, Bosch, worried about the news, not quite true, of the imminent production of cameras by Silma. It is the end of the 1960s: the number of employees (mostly women) has increased considerably and a job at Silma is considered an absolute fortune. A small production jewel in which each sector is entrusted to a manager and where each piece produced is the result of an internal processing, carried out with the utmost precision, Roberto Tolone told us .... A research and testing laboratory, a center of style, a manager of the assembly lines, a model maker to make wooden prototypes, a painting department for the creation of colors. People motivated by their work, with a very low age (around 30 years) and very female staff for assembly operations: very nice, elegant, made-up girls, who, from the canteen break, often returned to work with a different speaker than worn in the morning. The fame of the company during the 1960s had grown considerably: some models traveled around the world. The acquisition of Silma by the Bosch group, whose affiliate Bauer operated in the field of cinema, in spite of the more alarmist rumors, does not substantially change the working rhythm and the internal conditions of the workers. It is precisely from the 70s that Silma it is experiencing its most intense season, certainly favored by the high organizational capacity of the German "colossus" and by the improvements made in terms of design, production, import and export. The opening of ten agencies testifies to Silma's excellent state of health. The company, ideally projected forward by about ten years, came out with multiple models, with the brand Silma, Bauer, Rollei, Canon, Bell & Howell, Kodak, models that were now circulating all over the world. And the forecasts were optimistic.

In Rivoli, a place at Silma meant well-being: in the 70s, its managers were often dynamic young people, led for example by the ability to change and to be optimally managed. Still, something escaped the great ability to "predict the future". In 1975 a serious moment of crisis, which led to three years after a first drastic reduction in staff. New hobbies appeared on the horizon: television was by now the indispensable companion of all, the cost of the film films increased adismisabile, the sale of the first video recorders responded to the interest of the market. Yet corporate enthusiasm was still very high. But in 1980 Bosch decided to commit itself from a sector that was no longer considered beneficial: the sale of the Silma to a multinational company headed by the Italian Sassoli family opens a new era of trade union struggle for the defense of the workplace. From 600 employees drop to 450 and unnecessary soon reveal investments in technological innovations. In 1985 the Sassolivese family sold the company to a German buyer, mail bankruptcy arrived at the end of the year. Yet a small group continued its struggle, in Almese, to design new projectors, desperately trying to return to the surface.

It was not possible. La Silma di Cascine Vica therefore closed overnight: in the large offices, in the immense rooms where pieces of refined technology had been produced, everything was slowly covered with a layer of increasingly heavy dust. As evidence of the importance achieved by Silma over the years, that grandiose building remained severely tested even by the fire that broke out on February 14, 2000, when work was already underway to adapt the structure to the new destination of the City Hall. "La Silma signs your memories" was the motto of the projector factory, but many memories are still very much alive today in those who walk those long and clear corridors. Someone tells, perhaps a little softly, "I worked here too, a few years ago ... when I was a little younger. "