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    Pier Luigi Nervi
    Pier Luigi Nervi
    Pier Luigi Nervi
    Ebook148 pages58 minutes

    Pier Luigi Nervi

    By Ada Louise Huxtable

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    About this ebook

    This book by Pulitzer-Prize-winning critic Ada Louise Huxtable is a monograph on the great Italian architect and structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979), which was first published in 1960.

    PIER LUIGI NERVI was born in Sandrio, Italy, on June 21, 1891. He completed his formal studies at the civil engineering school of the University of Bologna in 1913. After graduating, he worked for the Società per Costruzioni Cementizie until 1920, receiving thorough experience in the design of reinforced concrete. In 1920 he formed the partnership of Soc. Ing. Nervi e Nebbiosi. During this association, which lasted until 1932, several noteworthy structures were built, especially the Florence Municipal Stadium. In 1932 he joined with a cousin to form Ingg. Nervi e Bartoli, the design and construction firm which he headed; the famous airplane hangars of 1938-1943, won by the firm in competition, brought Nervi international attention.

    In the mid-1940s he developed the versatile material “Ferro-cementa,” a system of layers of fine steel mesh sprayed with cement mortar, which he used in the extraordinary Grand Salon of the Turin Exhibition Hall (1949). With this, building, Nervi became firmly established as one of the world’s foremost engineers, a reputation reinforced again and again by subsequent works, including the completion of three stadia for the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

    A member of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), he was also Professor of Technology and Construction Techniques at the University of Rome. He was awarded Gold Medals by the Institution of Structural Engineers in the UK, the American Institute of Architects (AIA Gold Medal 1964) and the RIBA. In 1957, he received the Frank P. Brown Medal of The Franklin Institute and the Wilhelm Exner Medal.

    Pier Luigi Nervi died on January 9, 1979 at the age of 87.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMuriwai Books
    Release dateJan 12, 2017
    ISBN9781787208490
    Pier Luigi Nervi
    Author

    Ada Louise Huxtable

    Ada Louise Huxtable (née Landman; March 14, 1921 - January 7, 2013) was an architecture critic and writer on architecture. In 1970 she was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. She was born in New York City in 1921, the daughter of Michael Landman, a physician and co-author (with his brother, Rabbi Isaac Landman) of the play A Man of Honor. She received an A. B. (magna cum laude) from Hunter College, CUNY in 1941. In 1942, she married industrial designer L. Garth Huxtable, and continued graduate study at New York University from 1942-1950. From 1950-1951 she spent one year in Italy on a scholarship of the U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission. She served as Curatorial Assistant for Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1946-1950. She was a contributing editor to Progressive Architecture and Art in America from 1950-1963 before being named the first architecture critic at The New York Times, a post she held from 1963-1982. She received grants from the Graham Foundation for a number of projects, including the book Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? (1989). She was credited as one of the main forces behind the founding of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965 and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974. She was the architecture critic for The Wall Street Journal, a position she took up in 1997. She wrote over ten books on architecture, including Kicked A Building Lately? (1976); Architecture, Anyone? Cautionary Tales of the Building Art (1988); Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger: An Anthology of Architectural Delights and Disasters (1986); and The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered: A History of the Skyscraper (1993). She also wrote a 2004 biography of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), a first generation Welsh-American architect. Ms. Huxtable died in New York City in 2013, aged 91.

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    • 5/5
      Really great illustriations of beautiful but not well known Nervi's buildings

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    Book preview

    Pier Luigi Nervi - Ada Louise Huxtable

    This edition is published by Papamoa Press – www.pp-publishing.com

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    Text originally published in 1960 under the same title.

    © Papamoa Press 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

    Publisher’s Note

    Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

    We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

    PIER LUIGI NERVI

    BY

    ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Contents

    TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4

    INTRODUCTION 6

    I 8

    II 13

    III 18

    LIST OF WORKS 109

    BRIEF CHRONOLOGY 112

    HONORS 113

    BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES WRITTEN BY PIER LUIGI NERVI 114

    BOOKS 114

    ARTICLES 114

    SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON PIER LUIGI NERVI 116

    SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS 118

    REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 119

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    Appreciation is expressed to Pier Luigi Nervi, whose interest and co-operation have made this book possible; to Burton H. Holmes, who kindly read the manuscript in his capacity as a technical expert; to Progressive Architecture, of the Reinhold Publishing Company, for permission to reprint sections of a Nervi review by the author; to the F. W. Dodge Corporation, for the use of quotations from Structures, by P. L. Nervi, © 1956 by F. W. Dodge Corporation, translation of Nervi’s book, Costruire Correttamentee; to Charles Magruder for constant encouragement; and to my understanding and helpful family.

    INTRODUCTION

    WHEN PIER LUIGI NERVI speaks of his work, it is with matter-of-fact modesty. To questions about the technical innovations of the unprecedented structures that he has built for almost half a century, he replies, in a tone of slight surprise: It was simple...the obvious solution...the logical thing to do.

    From even the most superficial examination of his work, however, it is evident that Nervi’s solutions go far beyond the obvious: his uniquely personal, intricate structural logic has established a creative highpoint in 20th century engineering and architectural design. Unlike many gifted people, he feels no need to press proof of his genius upon the public, for his work speaks eloquently for him. The clarity of its structure and the grace of its forms combine to give new meaning to the unfashionable word beauty.

    Nervi’s stature in the field of engineering design is acknowledged internationally. Now that the post-war hoopla about the rebirth of Italian creativity has died down, we see much of the widely publicized renaissance as a self-conscious, slightly hysterical straining after originality for its own sake. (One thing that the Italians have never lost, and that needed no post-war revival, is a dramatic flair for striking theatrical poses.) Today, the quality of Nervi’s work stands alone, in the truly great tradition of Italian design.

    Nor is it odd that this tradition, based largely on an elegant array of magnificent palaces and churches, should turn to factories, hangars, warehouses and exposition halls. It is in these buildings that we find the current frontiers of design, and the most significant structural and esthetic advances of our age. Their unprecedented and unconventional requirements offer the most challenging opportunities to explore the basic problem of the enclosure of space. Nervi’s most successful designs, all space constructions of primary significance, are outstanding contributions to the solution of this problem—the Florence Stadium, 1930–32; the series of airplane hangars at Orvieto, Orbetello and Torre del Lago, 1936–41; the Turin Exposition Hall, 1948–49; a salt warehouse at Tortona, 1950–51; a tobacco factory at Bologna, 1952; a wool factory in Rome, 1953; the Fiat Works in Turin, 1955; and the 1960 Olympic buildings in Rome.

    Perhaps the key to Nervi’s stature as a designer lies in the fact that although his structure is intricate, and often

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