Design strutturale a Milano (1960-1980). Una mutazione interna alla scuola italiana d'ingegneria

In the 1950s and 1960s Italian structural engineering received international attention due to a number of extremely original structural works in reinforced concrete. The material embodied the needs of a country that lagged far behind others in term of industrialization. In situ casting, with its prominent artisanal dimension, played a crucial role. However, techniques of pre-casting were wide used as well, presenting original hand-crafted aspects. Reversing the paradox of the ‘proto-industrial’ dimension of the country, Italian structural engineering seems to provide a side story of international pre-cast concrete. Starting in the 1930s with Pier Luigi Nervi’s invention of ‘structural prefabrication’, this evolved into a continuous experimentalism and the development of a prominent Italian structural language in the North of Italy, overcoming the prejudices against industrialised structures, in both technical and aesthetical terms.