Fuller, Nervi Candela to Deliver 1961-62 Norton Lecture Series

Three noted architectural innovators will deliver the 1961-62 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures.

They are R. Buckminster Fuller '17, who introduced the geodesic dome to modern architecture; Pier Luigi Nervi of Italy, an architect known for his use of thin concrete shells; and Felix Candela of Mexico, an experimenter with such new structural concepts as elliptical domes and umbrellas.

Candels will lecture in November and December, Fuller in February and March, and Nervi in April and May. Next year will mark the first time that the annual Norton Professorship has been shared. In the past, the series has consisted of six lectures, three in the fall, and three in the spring, on either literature, music, or art.

Fuller's geodesic dome--a structure composed of a large number of five-sided figures--is viewed as a practical way to cover large areas without columns. The United States used the dome for its new DEW line Radomes.

Fuller, president of Geodesics, Inc. and Synergetics, Inc., spoke at the University last spring at the Leverett House Art Exhibition.

Nervi Shell Spans 300 Feet

Renowned as a structural engineer and a master of pre-stressed and pre-cast concrete, Nervi built the Turin Exhibition Hall with a one-and-one-half-inch thick concrete shell spanning 300 feet. He is a professor at the University of Rome.

Candela, a professor at the National School of Architecture in Mexico City, has designed and constructed a number of buildings in Mexico featuring thin concrete roofs in the form of hyperbolic paraboloids, umbrellas, folded slabs, elliptical domes, and undulating curves.

Drama critic Eric Bentley is Norton Professor for the present year.