103 nervi & zaha

Modernist and post-modernist buildings are extremely scarce in Rome, but a sort of modernist district is being formed north of the city. The oldest piece is Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazzetto (above), followed by Renzo Piano's Auditorium, and now Zaha Hadid's new MAXXI museum.

I had heard that Nervi's building had been abandoned, but luckily for me, the doors were propped open and no one was in sight, so I snuck in to look at the interior. I was blown away. Nervi was a structural engineer that really pushed the limits of reinforced concrete shell structures. I had assumed that his shells were of uniform thickness. I had also considered his buildings pretty ugly for the most part. But the interior surface is composed of structural ribs in an intricate radial geometry.

Design-wise, it's always risky to use such strict symmetry, especially considering construction errors and construction tolerance. But it's so nice to see it well-executed, and so sad that this movement of sculptural structural concrete from the 50s and 60s has more or less died out. From the structural perspective, it seems that we have not really expanded our knowledge as a civilization in recent times. Although there have been significant breakthroughs in mathematical understanding (i.e. moment distribution, finite element method), these have assisted computing time, but I don't really see any recent breakthroughs in the implementation of ideas. Are modern structural engineers any more knowledgeable than the ancient Romans? Part of me would argue no... mostly because we have to dedicate so much time to understanding legalese building codes.

Right next door is Zaha Hadid's site. An Iraqi, she is arguably the most famous female architect of all time. Unfortunately, only a small amount of the emerging structure is visible, although the level of craftsmanship fo the formwork and scaffolding alone is quite impressive. She's using a lot of concrete as skin (and hopefully as structure too), which is finished with expert craftsmanship which makes it appear as smooth as marble.