Pier Luigi Nervi

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(b Sondrio, 21 June 1891; d Rome, 9 Jan 1979). Italian architect and engineer. He graduated in civil engineering from the University of Bologna in 1913. Before and after serving in World War I, he worked for the Societ? per Construzione Cimentizia (SCC) in Bologna, subsequently going into practice in Rome, as a partner initially in Nervi and Nebbiosi (1923-32) and then with Nervi and Bartolia, until 1960, when with his three sons, Antonio, Vittorio and Mario, he set up Studio Nervi. He first achieved wide acclaim for the Berta Municipal Stadium (won in competition, 1929; completed 1932) in Florence. It was praised internationally not only as a feat of engineering but also for its design and economy, and the building demonstrated his ability to integrate function with abstract sculptural form, for example in the elegant interlaced helical supports of the external staircases. Between 1935 and 1942, again through winning a competition, Nervi designed a series of aircraft hangars for the Italian air force, the first of which at Orvieto (1938) determined their form: long pointed barrel vaults, constructed on latticed grids of light crossing members, rising from complex triangulated edge-beams. The various sized ribs were prefabricated from reinforced concrete rather than pouring them in place. In these hangars Nervi produced the first version of his diamond-patterned lamella vault. When the German army destroyed the hangars (1944) during their retreat in World War II, most of the joints where the ribs crossed remained intact.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The Italian architect, engineer, and builder Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979) was one of the most inventive exploiters of reinforced-concrete construction of the 20th century.

Reinforced concrete, a material combining the monolithic compressive strength of concrete with the tensile strength of steel reinforcing rods, entered the history of architecture at the end of the 19th century in France. The earlier patented processes of Joseph Monier, François Coignet, and others were applied by François Hennebique at the Charles VI Mill at Tourcoing (1895) and by Anatole de Baudot in the church of St-Jean-de-Montmartre in Paris (1894-1897). Those were the first significant uses of reinforced concrete for large-scale architectural problems. Some later builders used reinforced concrete in traditional, linear ways; others recognized that the material could accommodate an experimental approach using continuous curving systems. Pier Luigi Nervi was a leader in the latter approach.

Born on June 21, 1891, in Sondrio, Italy, a town in the Alps, Nervi, the son of a postmaster, graduated from the School of Civil Engineering in Bologna in 1913. He gained practical training with building firms specializing in concrete construction, in Bologna before World War I and in Florence afterward.

Early Work

In 1923 Nervi established his own firm in Rome. His first all-concrete building was a small cinema in Naples, built in 1927. He recalled later how skeptical architects were "sure my building would cave in for lack of proper support." In 1929 he produced a work of remarkable significance: the Municipal Stadium in Florence. An economical design, with a grandstand roof cantilevering some 55 feet and exterior stairs of cantilevered spirals, the stadium established Nervi's reputation.

In 1932, he formed a new firm, Nervi and Bartoli, and that company in 1936 developed a series of airplane hangars using reinforced concrete that was poured in place. Two hangars were built, but the difficulties of poured-in-place concrete construction led in 1939 to a second hangar design using precast concrete sections, a system Nervi used with great success after World War II. Six hangars of the second type were erected; Paul Goldberger of the New York Times described them as "graceful, flying forms of concrete." All eight hangars were dynamited by retreating German forces in 1944, and Nervi was so upset, one of his sons recalled, that "he wanted to crawl under those hangars and die with them."

Visions in Concrete

Nervi designed and built an exhibition hall, the Salone Agnelli, in Turin (1947-1949) using a system of prefabrication he developed. The structure is composed of precast sections of what Nervi called ferrocemento, a material made of a fine mesh of steel wire filled and covered by a thin layer of cement. The use of precast sections eliminates costly and time-consuming wooden formwork, creates a system of mass production that can begin even while the foundations are being dug, speeds construction, and is economical. At Turin the hall is covered by precast sections 1 1/2 inches thick forming undulating ribs that carry the structural load across the 328-foot-wide room to fan-shaped piers at the sides. It took just seven months to erect. One critic likened the hall to a suspension bridge, "for it has the sense of materials being pushed to their utmost, yet without ever appearing to strain," as Goldberger noted.

In 1946 Nervi began lecturing on architectural engineering at Rome University. He collaborated with other architects on a series of internationally important buildings in the 1950s. The UNESCO Building in Paris (with Marcel Breuer and others, 1952-1957) has a reinforced-concrete structure, the most interesting part of which is the continuous folded slab of the walls and roof of the General Assembly. The 32-story Pirelli Office Building in Milan (with Gio Ponti and others, 1955-1956) has a more traditional load-bearing structural system. Nervi also designed two sports arenas erected for the Roman Olympics of 1960. The 5,000-seat "little palace" (with Annibale Vitelozzi, 1957) has prefabricated diamond-shaped sections descending from an overhead compression ring to exposed, prefabricated, Y-shaped piers sloped to receive their diagonal thrusts. The 16,000-seat "palace" (with M. Piacentini, 1958-1960), has piers covered on the exterior by a glass skirt.

For the Palace of Labor in Turin (1960-1961) Nervi combined reinforced concrete with steel (designed by G. Covre) to create a large rectangular hall filled with a forest of treelike structures forming ceiling and support. At the Burgo Paper Mill outside Mantua (1961-1962) he used steel cables (also by Covre) suspended between concrete piers to create a clear span of 525 feet.

International Reputation

Nervi collaborated on projects as far afield as Australia and the United States. The Bus Station at the George Washington Bridge in New York City, famous for the butterfly-like wings of exposed concrete that make up its roof, and the Field House for Dartmouth College in New Hampshire (both 1961-1962) were erected at the same time that he was delivering the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. In 1964 he received the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects, the highest honor in American architecture. Nervi's bus station design helped him win fame in the United States, but its design was altered later because open spaces between the concrete wings, left to allow bus fumes to escape, let cold winds off the Hudson River intrude.

His Theory

The delicacy of the lacy coverings for large-span halls such as that at Chianciano (1952) and the Roman sports palaces might lead one to forget how essentially businesslike was Nervi's approach to structure. He looked and thought exactly like what he was: the head of a firm engaged in the cutthroat business of building. In his writings, Nervi constantly reminded readers that 90 percent of his contracts were awarded in competitions where the governing factors were economy and speed of construction. He thrived on these limitations and, indeed, "never found this relentless search for economy an obstacle to achieving the expressiveness of form" desired.

Architecture, for Nervi, was "a synthesis of technology and art." To find the logical solution to a limiting set of factors within a highly competitive situation was, for him, "to build correctly." His mastery of concrete bespoke a love for its adaptability. "Concrete is a living creature which can adapt itself to any form, any need, any stress," he once said.

Further Reading

Structures (1956); Buildings, Projects, Structures, 1953-1963 (trans. 1963), which contains many illustrations of his works, and Aesthetics and Technology in Building (1965) by Nervi are in English; Pier Luigi Nervi (1960), by Ada Louise Huxtable, is well illustrated; sketches on Nervi are also available in Muriel Emanuel, ed., Contemporary Architects (1994); and in Randall J. Van Vynckt, ed., International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture (1993).

Italian civil engineer, he made his reputation as one of the most gifted designers of reinforced-concrete structures of C20. Although influenced by Italian Rationalism, notably by Terragni, he remained stylistically independent of fashion. His Florence Stadium (1930–2), with its huge cantilevered roof-structure and projecting spiral stairs, was the first of his many buildings to gain international acclaim. From 1932 he headed his own company, and invented a vault of diagonally intersecting concrete arched forms, the whole resting on leaning columns like flying buttresses, which he realized in the huge aircraft hangars at Orvieto (1935–42—destroyed) and elsewhere. He then evolved a system of superimposed steel meshes encased in concrete that enabled him to create prefabricated corrugated elements with high tensile capacity at the Great Hall B, Exhibition Hall, Turin (1947–9). Variations on these techniques were used in Rome at the Palazzetto dello Sport (1956–7—with Vitellozzi), and the huge Palazzo dello Sport (1958–9—with Piacentini), where an immense dome seems to float over the space. Nervi designed the structure for Ponti's Pirelli skyscraper, Milan (1955–8), and, with Breuer, Zehrfuss, and others, the UNESCO Buildings, Paris (1953–7), where he was responsible for the Congress Hall, with its roof formed of folded ferroconcrete plates. He published Aesthetics and Technology in Building (1965) and other works.

Bibliography

• P. Collins (1959)
• Desideri et al.(eds.) (1979)
• Kalman (1994)
• Huxtable (1960a)
• Lampugnani (ed.) (1988)
• Mainstone (1975)
• Malave (1984c)
• Nervi (1956, 1965)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• A.Pica (1969)
• Jane Turner (1996)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Pier Luigi Nervi
Personal information
Nationality	Italian
Birth date	June 21, 1891(1891-06-21)
Birth place	Sondrio, Italy
Date of death	January 9, 1979 (aged 87)
Education	University of Bologna
Work
Engineering Discipline	Structural engineer
Institution memberships	Society for Concrete Construction Institution of Structural Engineers
Significant projects	Olympic Stadium in Rome (1960) UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1950) Hangar in Orvieto (1935)
Significant Awards	IStructE Gold Medal

Pier Luigi Nervi (June 21, 1891 - January 9, 1979) was an Italian engineer. He studied at the University of Bologna and qualified in 1913. Dr. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946-61. He is renowned for his brilliance as a structural engineer and an architect, and for his novel use of reinforced concrete.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Civil engineering works 3 Engineer and architect 4 International projects 5 Noted works 6 Awards 7 See also 8 External links

Biography

Pier Luigi Nervi was born in Sondrio and attended the Civil Engineering School of Bologna, from which he graduated in 1913. After graduation, Nervi joined the Society for Concrete Construction. Nervi spent several years in the Italian army during World War I from 1915-1918, when he served in the Corps of Engineering. His formal education was quite similar to that experienced by today's civil engineering student in Italy.

From 1961-1962 Nervi was the Norton professor at Harvard University.

Civil engineering works

Nervi in front of the Sports Palace in Rome (1960)

Nervi began practicing civil engineering after 1923, and built several airplane hangars amongst his contracts. During 1940s he developed ideas for a reinforced concrete which helped in the rebuilding of many buildings and factories throughout Western Europe, and even designed/created a boat hull that was made of reinforced concrete as a promotion for the Italian government.

Nervi also stressed that intuition should be used as much as mathematics in design, especially with thin shelled structures. He borrowed from both Roman and Renaissance architecture to create aesthetically pleasing structures, yet applied structural aspects such as ribbing and vaulting often based on nature. This was to improve the structural strength and eliminate the need for columns. He succeeded in turning engineering into an art by taking simple geometry and using sophisticated prefabrication to find direct design solutions in his buildings.

Engineer and architect

Pier Luigi Nervi was educated and practised as a ingegnere edile (translated as "building engineer") - in Italy, at the time (and to a lesser degree also today), a building engineer might also be considered an architect. After 1932, his aesthetically pleasing designs were used for major projects. This was due to the booming number of construction projects at the time which used concrete and steel in Europe and the architecture aspect took a step back to the potential of engineering. Nervi successfully made reinforced concrete the main structural material of the day.

International projects

Most of his built structures are in his native Italy, but he also worked on projects abroad. Nervi's first project in the United States was the George Washington Bridge Bus Station. He designed the roof which consists of triangle pieces which were cast in place. This building is still used today by over 700 buses and their passengers.

Noted works

The Tour de la Bourse in Montreal (1964)

• Stadio Artemio Franchi, Florence (1931)
• Exhibition Building, Turin, Italy (1949).
• UNESCO headquarters, Paris (1950) (collaborating with Marcel Breuer and Bernard Zehrfuss)
• The Pirelli Tower, Milan (1950) (collaborating with Gio Ponti)
• Palazzo dello sport EUR (now PalaLottomatica), Rome (1956)
• Palazzetto dello sport, Rome (1958)
• Olympic Stadium, Rome (1960)
• Palazzo del Lavoro, Turin (1961)
• Palazzetto dello sport, Turin (1961)
• Sacro Cuore (Bell Tower), Firenze (1962)
• Paper Mill, Mantua, Italy (1962)
• George Washington Bridge Bus Station, New York City (1963)
• Tour de la Bourse, Montreal (1964)
• Field House at Dartmouth College
• Thompson Arena at Dartmouth College
• Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, San Francisco, California (1967) (collaborating with Pietro Belluschi)
• Paul VI Audience Hall, Vatican City (1971)
• Australian Embassy, Paris (1973) Consulting engineer
• Good Hope Centre, Cape Town (1976) by Studio Nervi, an exhibition hall and conference centre, with the exhibition hall comprising an arch with tie-beam on each of the four vertical facades and two diagonal arches supporting two intersecting barrel-like roofs which in turn were constructed from pre-cast concrete triangular coffers with in-situ concrete beams on the edges.
• Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, VA (1971)

Palazzetto dello sport

Pirelli Tower

Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption

Norfolk Scope

Awards

Pier Luigi Nervi was awarded Gold Medals by the Institution of Structural Engineers, the AIA, RIBA and the Académie d'architecture.

See also

• Thin-shell structure

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pier Luigi Nervi

• Photos Palazzetto dello sport 1958 District Flaminio, Rome, Italy.
• Pier Luigi Nervi information at Structurae
• "Pierluigi Nervi e l'arte di costruire", Fausto Giovannardi, Borgo San Lorenzo (Florence) Italy 2008

v • d • e IStructE Gold Medal Winners Henry Adams (1922) • John Baker (1953) • Eugène Freyssinet (1957) • Hardy Cross (1958) • Félix Candela (1960) • William Glanville (1962) • John Guthrie Brown (1964) • Pier Luigi Nervi (1967) • Alfred Pugsley (1968) • Knud Johansen (1971) • Yves Guyon (1972) • Ove Arup (1973) • Henry Husband (1973) • Fritz Leonhardt (1975) • Oleg Kerensky (1977) • Nathan M. Newmark (1979) • Riccardo Morandi (1980) • Alec Skempton (1981) • Alan Harris (1984) • Frank Newby (1985) • Michael Horne (1986) • Alan Garnett Davenport (1987) • Anthony Flint (1988) • Gerhard Jack Zunz (1988) • Jörg Schlaich (1990) • Edmund Happold (1991) • Olgierd Zienkiewicz (1991) • Santiago Calatrava (1992) • Anthony Hunt (1994) • Michel Virlogeux (1996) • John Burland (1997) • F. Michael Burdekin (1997) • William Ian Liddell (1999) • Duncan Michael (2000) • Cheng Hon Kwan (2001) • Sam Thorburn (2003) • Leslie E. Robertson (2004) • John Roberts (2005) • Roger Johnson (2006) • Joseph Locke (2007) • Mike Glover (2008) •

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