Handmade’ pre-cast concrete: the Italian experience between structural engineering and industrial design (1950-80)

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. This survey is conducted in the framework of the research project ‘SIXXI - 20th Century Structural Engineering: the Italian contribution’, thanks to an ERC Advanced Grant funding (P.I. Sergio Poretti and Tullia Iori).