The language of Structures. The Italian school of engineering

This paper intends to present the most important results of the “SIXXI - 20th Century Struc-tural Engineering: the Italian contribution” Research (ERC Advanced Grant 2011). The SIXXI research is designed to trace and tell the tale of structural engineering in Italy. It has been an enthralling, sometimes stunning and undeniably unique, tale of progress. Italy had always lagged behind other industrialized nations; yet, in the Twentieth century it was able to start a new trend that would be up to the most advanced European standards. Under the autarchic regime, Italian structural engineering created its own unique identity, and then in the enthusiastic second post-war reconstruction period and the economic booming years it produced outstanding works, and made a name for itself as one of the most prominent schools in the world. In the fol-lowing years, it faded into oblivion as quickly as it had risen on the international scene. There is an objective difficulty to see the history of structural engineering against a specific disciplinary context. A structure requires a radically trans-disciplinary approach. In the development of the Italian school of Engineering, the theoretical contribution made by Menabrea, Castigliano, Danusso, Colonnetti is no less important than the work of designers like Nervi, Morandi, Zorzi and Musmeci. To get the secret of the originality of the great post-War achievements – it is necessary to investigate the close collaboration between scientists and de-signers. An operator and a theoretician, the protagonist of the Italian school is a multi-faceted figure that is at the same time a scientist, an entrepreneur and a craftsman, a reincarnation of the 19th-century engineer. Based on that strange combination, he finds the conditions for a short, anachronistic survival in the unique setting of Italian (belated and constantly proto-industrial) modernization. The challenge faced by the SIXXI research is to discover the history of structural engineering by applying the approach that is used by the history of construction. Being this a ‘material histo-ry’, it is prepared to recreate the design and construction phases as ‘practices’: definite moments of a material culture. Since any practice is heterogeneous, but essentially unitary, a historian wishing to bring it back to life cannot use an interdisciplinary approach but has to get ready to take transversal paths on his own. The creator of a major structural work passes easily through the great epistemological areas, from sciences to techniques and arts. The investigator wishing to trace his works has to go the same way.