Pier Luigi Nervi

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

1 Biography
2 Works
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Pier Luigi Nervi was born 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.

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 comprised 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.

Pier Luigi Nervi was educated and practised as a "building" engineer (ingeniere edile)- 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.

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 poured in place. This building is still used today by over 700 buses and its passengers. He was awarded Gold Medals by the AIA, RIBA and the Académie d'architecture and taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946-61.

[edit] Works

Tour de la Bourse (1964).

Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence (1931)
Exhibition Building, in Turin, Italy, (1949).
UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1950) (collaborating with Marcel Breuer and others)
Palazzetto dello sport in EUR,Rome (1958)
Olympic Stadium in Rome (1960)
Palazzo del Lavoro, in Turin (1961)
Paper Mill in Mantua, Italy, (1962)
George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York City (1963)
Tour de la Bourse in Montreal (1964)
Field House at Dartmouth College
Thompson Arena at Dartmouth College
Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco, California (1967) (collaborating with Pietro Belluschi)
Good Hope Centre in 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 in Norfolk, VA (1973)