Pier Luigi Nervi - Biography

Architect and engineer, born in Sondrio, N Italy. After graduating as an engineer, he set up as a building contractor. His many works include the Berta Stadium in Florence (1930–2), a complex of exhibition halls in Turin (1948–50), and the Pirelli building (the first skyscraper in Italy, 1955). He achieved an international reputation with his designs for the two Olympic stadia in Rome (1960), in which bold and imaginative use is made of concrete for roofing in the large areas. He also designed San Francisco cathedral (1970). He was professor at Rome from 1947 to 1961.

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

Biography

Pier Luigi Nervi was born Sondrio and attended the Civil Engineering School of Bologna, from which he graduated in 1913. Nervi spent several years in the Italian army during World War I from 1915-1918, when he served in the Corps of Engineering.

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.

Pier Luigi Nervi was known primarily as a structural engineer, but he was also considered an architect. 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. UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1950) (collaborating with Marcel Breuer and others) Palazzetto dello sport in Rome, Italy (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 constucted from pre-cast concrete triangular coffers with in-situ concrete beams on the edges.