Thomas Leslie

“Building Correctly:” Pier Luigi Nervi and the Synthesis of the Constructeur

 

My work at the Academy involved documentation and analysis of the work of Italian architect and engineer Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979).  Nervi’s intense discipline toward structure and construction was matched by evocative, sublime spaces.  Most of his experiments in complex formwork, statically expressive form, and lightweight ferrocemento construction are extant and well documented.  However, many of these structures have been neglected and present unique conservation issues that are applicable to much postwar concrete construction.  During my stay at the American Academy I conducted on-site and archival documentation of surviving structures, developed digital reconstructions of key components and buildings, and met with organizations in Rome, Turin, and Brussels to discuss long-term plans to raise awareness and to develop campaigns to protect Nervi’s work.  I also worked on a book-length manuscript that examines Nervi’s work from the point of view of its construction, focusing on his contracting business and the importance of his patented systems to his overall designs.

 

Nervi’s long-span and high-rise structures have formed a rich set of case studies for my own teaching, as their clear conception and execution illustrate important structural and constructive principles.  Behind these individual examples lay a broad, integrative philosophy that made the case for “constructing correctly”—in harmony with principles of statics, assembly, and efficiency—as a basis for architectural experience.  While his terminology sounds dogmatic, Nervi’s own explanation revealed a subtle integration of what he called structural ‘truths’ and architectural form.  “Despite an abundance of impersonal technical solutions,” he argued, structural grammar and “correct” solutions could engender “that warmth of human intuition and sensitivity” that underlay classical and gothic architecture.  His fluent grasp of new materials and techniques led to processes that were both experimental and reflective, suggesting a critical view of technology that measured new potentialities within historic, cultural, and physical contexts.  These experiments often deployed simple materials and unskilled labor in thoughtful ways to produce refined structural forms, relying on efficiencies in fabrication and geometry.  Structures such as the 1961 Palazzo Lavoro thus found ways to take advantage of Italy’s surging economy despite the failure of its construction industry and labor market to keep pace with technical developments.

 

Such cleverly conceived structures, however, are now often suffering from poor maintenance, and their crude materials are endangered by neglect and a half-century of weathering; the Palazzo Lavoro is overgrown, its cladding compromised by water and its interior filling with refuse.  While in Rome, I documented these works and their conditions, trying to understand their place in Italian culture while seeking solutions to the vexing problems posed by their current conditions. 

 

The resulting collaborations, articles, and book will raise awareness of Nervi’s work in the context of progressive trends in postwar Europe, particularly the emphasis in architecture and design on integrating the “two cultures” of the sciences and humanities.  The rich interplay of engineering and aesthetics in Nervi’s work can be best understood by careful study of the processes that enabled their construction, in particular the labor-saving construction algorithms that produced intertwined spiral domes and gently curving piers out of simple formwork.  But these physical manifestations of fabrication and assembly present unique preservation issues alongside their legible static and constructive patterns.  I hope that this project will play a role in bringing attention back to their civic, cultural, and technological importance while helping to ensure their survival and continued usefulness.