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He studied at the
University of Bologna and qualified in 1913. Dr. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at
Rome University from 1946-61. He is renowned for his brilliance as a structural engineer and an
architect, and for his novel use of reinforced concrete.
Pier Luigi Nervi was born in 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 and
created a boat hull that was made 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.
Îost 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 cast in place. This building is still used
today by over 700 buses and their passengers.
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Pier Luigi Nervi was awarded Gold Îedals by the Institution of Structural Engineers, the AIA,
RIBA and the Académie d'architecture.
He was also awarded the Frank P. Brown Îedal of The Franklin Institute in 1957.
ð (February 6, 1872 - April 5, 1940) was a Swiss civil engineer who revolutionized the use
of structural reinforced concrete with such designs as the three-hinged arch and the deck-stiffened arch
for bridges, and the beamless floor slab and mushroom ceiling for industrial buildings. His completed
Salginatobel (1929ʹ1930) and Schwandbach (1933) bridges changed the aesthetics and engineering of
bridge construction dramatically and influenced decades of architects and engineers after him. In 1991
the Salginatobel Bridge was declared an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the
American Society of Civil Engineers
BIOGRAPHY
ð
Robert Îaillart was born in Berne, Switzerland in 1872. After he received his civil engineering
degree from the Federal Polytechnical Institute in Zurich in 1894, he worked for a series of
Swiss engineers. He established his own design-construction firm in 1902. He moved the firm to
Russia in 1912 but it collapsed during the Russian Revolution in 1917. Upon his return to
Switzerland, Îaillart worked with Lucien Îeisser and Ernst Stettler as a consulting engineer.
Between 1910 and 1912 Îaillart entered five major bridge competitions. Although juries usually
preferred the more conventional bridges to his, Îaillart actually built three bridges based on the
quality and competitive pricing of his works. Immediately following this period, he taught for
several years as a private teacher at the Zurich Federal Polytechnical Institute.
Primarily an engineer, Îaillart gained notoriety through his innovative bridge designs. Îaillart
utilized the structural strength and expressive potential of reinforced concrete to generate a
modern form for his bridges. To avoid structural beams and arches, he established a structural
form based on both flat and curved concrete slabs reinforced with steel.
Using very simple construction concepts, Îaillart produced some of the most beautiful
structures of the twentieth century. Îaillart's major new forms, the open three-hinged, hollow-
box arch, the mushroom slab, and the deck-stiffened arch illustrate at least three of the
fundamentally radical ideas he expressed about twentieth-century structures.