For
decades Pier Luigi Nervi, structural designer, has represented worldwide
the genius of the Italian architecture, which, for his unique standard,
has been perceived for a long time as high and balanced synthesis
of structural and spatial invention as well as natural elegance.
Often in remote countries the name of Nervi has evoked the memory
of the Brunelleschi while Italian designers have participated of his
charisma.
In Rome, Pier Luigi Nervi, as university professor, has embodied an
ideological principle on which our school of architecture was founded:
the will to affirm the unity of the technical knowledge and formal
talent through design intuition.
Nowdays his legacy of teacher of design mastery seems to be acknowledged
only abroad; his teaching tenets do not appear to operate in the School
he belonged to any longer.
For this reason it is necessary to speak of Pier Luigi Nervi again,
here in Rome, for the Roman School's architects and engineers, and
for everybody.
The themes
raised through these brief notes defined the interpretative framework
for both speakers of the opening sessions and the intervention of
Santiago Calaltrava, which took the whole session of the second day.
The working formula of the Symposium was to provide in each of the
two sessions of the first day a commentary through a scheduled set
of lectures in the opening ceremony,
the Rector of the "Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza"
Giuseppe D'Ascenzo, the Dean of the Facoltà di Architettura,
Mario Docci and the Head of the Dipartimento di Progettazione Architettonica
e Urbana Lucio Barbera gave their welcoming addresses.
In the morning session the speakers were: Giorgio Muratore, who gave
an overview of the role of Pier Luigi Nervi played in the roman scene
during the Fifties e Sixties; Antonio Michetti, Pier Luigi Nervi's
assistant in the School of Architecture for many years; Massimo Majoviecki
(faculty member in the School of Enginnering at the University of
Bologna) who explored critically the work of Nervi, Morandi and Musmeci
within the landscape of of the italian school of Engineering.
Critical reflections of Guy Nordenson, professor at the Princeton
University and Giuseppe Rega followed these lectures.
Paola Coppola Pignatelli was chairman of this first session.
In the afternoon session, Mario Desideri, a major assistant of Pier
Luigi Nervi (Pier Luigi Nervi through his works) and Gabriele Del
Mese, of Ove Arup of London (Engineering and architecture today) crafted
readings of the changes the "integrated project" has suffered
in these last thirty years.
On this topic and on the current conditions for the professional practice
of architecture in Italy, the chairman Sergio Lenci coordinated the
critical reflections of Francesco Cellini, Eduardo Vittoria and Maurizio
Cagnoni, a collaborator in Nervi's studio, in the late Sixties.
The central event of the Saturday session, lead by Lucio Barbera,
was the lecture - in italian - of Santiago Calatrava, widely held
the most renown engineer-architect of our time.
Not only did he illustrated the most meaningful aspects of his works,
through a video and slides, but also was he able to transmit the scope
of his architecture to a crowded and attentive audience that, at the
end of his speech, paied to him an outstanding ovation.
Calatrava's sculptures of Calatrava received particular attention
as they were presented as part and parcel of the design process to
explore unconventional structural solutions.
The final part of the session was entirely occupied by the answers,
long and comprehensive, that Calatrava gave to the numerous questions
students and teachers raised.
The organizing Committee is planing a special issue of the Bulletin
of the Dipartimento di Progettazione architettonica e urbana "Ricerca
e Progetto" containing all the lectures and discussions carried
out in the Conference.
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