Table of Contents

1. Technical Inventions and Economies of Construction Site 2. The Berta Stadium and the "Character of the Form" 3. Forms of Concrete for the Regime 4. Projects for the Universal Exhibition of Rome, Shells and Autarky 5. Prefabrication for Military and Industrial Aims 6. Towards the Thin Construction 7. Ferro-cement and Large Shell Roofs 8. Strength to Form and Structural Prefabrication 9. The Unesco Headquarters in Paris: The Perfect béton brut 10. The "Nervi System" 11. Controlled Brutalism: the Sport Palace 12. The Mirage of the Essence of the Matter 13. Monumental Structural Architecture 14. Last Works by Studio Nervi

About the Author

Alberto Bologna received his master degree in architecture at the Politecnico di Torino in 2007 and in 2011 he completed his PhD in History of Architecture and Town Planning in the same University. Since 2011, he conducts research at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He is the author of Pier Luigi Nervi negli Stati Uniti, 1952-1979, `Master Builder of The Modern Age’ and Pier Luigi Nervi ou l’art de la structure, Photographies de la collection Alberto Sartoris.


Roberto Gargiani has taught the history of architecture in Florence, Rouen, Paris, Venice and Rome. Currently is the professor in History of Architecture and Construction an the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He is the author of Rem Koolhaas/OMA: The Construction of Merveilles; Le Corbusier, Béton brut and Ineffable Space, 1940-196: Surface Materials and Psychophysiology of Vision (with Anna Rosellini); Concrete: from Archaeology to Invention, 1700-1769; and Louis I. Kahn, Exposed Concrete and Hollow Stones, 1949-1959.