Architect Nervi Slated As Norton Lecturer

Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi will give the first of three Charles Eliot Norton Lectures on "The Relationship Between Aesthetical and Technical Aspects of Building" Thursday night at 8 p.m. in Lowell Lecture Hall.

Nervi joints Felix Candela and R. Buckminster Fuller in sharing the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship this year. He is widely known for his innovations as a structural engineer, such as the thin precast and pre-stressed concrete shells that enclose many of his buildings.

Among Nervi's most spectacular creations is the Turin Exhibition Hall, which features a 300-foot concrete shell that is only one-and-a-half inches thick. He is also the designer of the Olympic Sports Palace in Rome and is one of three designers of the UNESCO building in Paris.

Thursday's lecture is entitled "In the Past." Nervi will consider "The Richness of Form of Reinforced Concrete" and "The Education of the Architect" in the following two lectures May 10 and 17.