Pier Luigi Nervi's architectural innovations with concrete can be seen in America's schools, churches, domed stadiums and arenas; his influence on American architecture is undisputed.
Pier Luigi Nervi regarded himself more as a engineer than as an architect. His legacy, however, suggests he was more a sculptor in concrete, albeit on a monumental scale.
Nervi was born in 1891 in the Italian Alps town of Sondrio. He attended the University of Bologna and joined the army engineering corps when Italy became involved in World War I. When the war was over, he joined a group called "The Society for Concrete Construction" but his innovative approach to architecture did not get critical attention until 1932 after he had left the group.
Nervi was a contemporary of Mies Van Der Rohe and half a generation removed from Frank Lloyd Wright, two other pioneers in the use of steel and concrete in architecture. Philosophically, his work was consonant with theirs. Economy, function, and simplicity were prevailing principles for the three. There, similarities ended. And from that point, Nervi exploded!
Gone were rectilinear shapes, replaced by ribbed concrete vaults and magnificently swooping curves. Most of his work was carried out in Europe, but its influence spanned the Atlantic.
The first evidence of Nervi's genius with concrete was the Communal Stadium, built in Florence in 1930-32. Here Nervi audaciously cantilevered the roof fifty feet out over the seating, where no one got stuck in a seat behind a post--there were no posts.
This project was followed in 1938 in Orbetello, by a hangar, of all things, more than three hundred feet long and with an overhead span of one hundred and twenty feet, unsupported open space, in concrete.
Then came the Exhibition Hall at Turin. Here the span was nearly three hundred feet.
The project which catapulted Nervi to lasting international recognition and that, to this day, leaves its mark on American design, is doubtless the circular covered arena designed for the Olympic Games in Rome. This structure exemplified Nervi's work with ribbed concrete construction and, in effect, demonstrated clearly that concrete for monumental public structures was aesthetically and economically viable.
During the Thirties, Nervi was able to design on a monumental scale, perhaps because his work reflected the "grand vision of Italy as super-state" characteristic of the Mussolini period. Nervi's influence on design has far outlasted Mussolini's influence on political science. We see his influence in our churches, schools, and other public structures. We especially see it in our arenas and domed stadiums. He provided a point of departure for several generations of architects and engineers. He demonstrated potentials of new materials in a manner which could not be ignored then, nor even now.
