Nervi, Pier Luigi

(born June 21, 1891, Sondrio, Italy—died Jan. 9, 1979, Rome) Italian engineer and building contractor. He became internationally renowned for his invention of ferro-cement, a material of his own invention composed of dense concrete heavily reinforced with evenly distributed steel mesh that together give it both lightness and strength. His first significant projects included a series of airplane hangars in Italy (1935–41) conceived as concrete vaults with huge spans. In addition to designing buildings, he succeeded in building a sailboat with a ferro-cement hull only 0.5 in. (1.25 cm) thick. Ferro-cement was vital to his complex for the Turin Exhibition (1949–50), a prefabricated, corrugated cylindrical 309-ft (93-m) arch. Nervi worked on the UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1950) with Marcel Breuer and helped design Italy's first skyscraper, the Pirelli Building in Milan (1955–59). Although Nervi's primary concern was never aesthetic, many of his works nonetheless achieved remarkable expressive force.

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