Pier Luigi Nervi, Hon. AIA

Year Awarded: 1964
Born: June 21, 1891; Sondrio, Lombardi, Italy
Died: 1979; Rome

Quote
Be yourself! Achieve what you want through initiative and effort!


Projects
• 1967: Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, San Francisco (with Pietro Belluschi)
• 1964: Tour de la Bourse, Montreal
• 1963: George Washington Bridge Bus Station, New York City
• 1962: Paper Mill, Mantua, Italy
• 1961: Palazzo del Lavoro, Turin
• 1960: Olympic Stadium, Rome
• 1958: Palazzetto dello Sport, Rome
• 1950: UNESCO headquarters, Paris (collaborating with Marcel Breuer and others)
• 1949: Exhibition Building, Turin, Italy
• Field House, Dartmouth College


Biography
Pier Luigi Nervi, a renowned Italian architect and engineer, earned a degree at the University of Bologna in Italy in 1913. During World War I, he served in the Italian Army Engineering Corps. For a short time after the war, he was associated with a group called the Society for Concrete Construction. From then until 1923, he worked as an engineer and contractor.

In 1932 Nervi and a cousin formed Nervi and Bartoli, a contracting company in Rome with which he remained for the rest of his life. In the 1940s, he developed what he called “ferro-cemento,” a strong and light form of reinforced concrete that enabled him to build large, complex buildings that were also strong and beautiful. Nervi successfully made reinforced concrete a main structural material of the building industry.

From 1946, Nervi taught architecture and engineering at the University of Rome. He believed that the two disciplines were inseparable parts of a whole. He also believed that beauty and utilitarianism were important and necessary partners and so combined beauty and structural logic in his designs.

For the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, he built the three stadiums for which he has become best known. That same year, he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects.