Through History and Technique: Pier Luigi Nervi on Architectural Resilience

Along with his professional work as engineer, architect and builder, Pier Luigi Nervi (1891–1979) was also an adjunct professor at the University of Rome and a prolific writer. Through his writings, his views on architectural history can be traced and framed as part of a wider discourse concerning what he termed architectural ‘constants’. Moreover, his interest in the architecture of the past led him to identify what could be defined as ‘architectural resilience’, that is, an ever-evolving relationship between building forms, techniques and materials. Seeing technique as preceding form, he examined structural elements that resisted the passage of time and outlasted building typologies and styles. Combining Nervi’s published and unpublished lecture notes with his personal collections of architectural postcards, photographs and his writings, this article explores Nervi’s search for a stile di verità (truthful style) through the lens of architectural resilience. With its focus on the resilience of structural elements, the article also places the engineer’s use of reinforced concrete in the particular historicity of this material and in the longer continuum of construction history.