Nervi Ties Technique to Aesthetics, Urges Simple Style in Architecture

No building has ever been "recognized as excellent from the aesthetic point of view if it is not also excellent from a technical point of view," Pier Luigi Nervi told a packed Lowell Lecture Hall last night.

The internationally renowned innovator of reinforced-concrete building techniques spent his first Charles Eliot Norton lecture discussing the "rapport between technique and aesthetics" in construction. To demonstrate the inseparability of these "material and spiritual" components of architecture, Nervi noted that "no one could feel a comfortable sense of tranquil aesthetic enjoyment in a room whose walls or ceiling visually gave the sensation of being on the verge of collapsing."

Theological Style Pleasing

Throughout history, Nervi remarked, architectural style has reflected the technical possibilities of the day. Insofar as style has followed technological trends, it has been aesthetically pleasing. But when style becomes an ornamental gloss, covering and hiding new developments, buildings lose their beauty.

Likewise, Nervi stated. "Excesses of dimension or disproportionate richness of decoration deteriorate very easily into vulgarity and in any case disturb that sensation of general balance which, as I see things, is the essential foundation of good architecture."

The union of technique and architectural expression reached its greatest perfection during the Gothic period, the Italian architect said. In Gothic construction, "one cannot distinguish the engineering aspect from the architectural one."

Gothic structural technique, Nervi claimed, was so perfectly suited to its ends that, using the same materials, modern engineers could not "introduce important modifications with out at the same time destroying the main anticipated result, Le., to cover stably the large central nave."

Nervi also ascribes the extraordinary aesthetic and emotional success of Gothic architecture to the "inseparable mixture of cold technique and fervid passion" which went into it.

Divorce of Passion

But, since the middle of the nineteenth century, when detached, scientific methods replaced intuition as the foundation for engineering many have feared a divorce of passion from technique, Nervi suggested.

Signor Nervi made it quite clear, however, that he does not share this pessimism. In his opinion, the new approach to engineering has revealed vast new technical possibilities which can in turn open equally vast aesthetic vistas if modern materials and techniques are used correctly. In his next lecture (May 10), he will discuss his own treatment of reinforced concrete.

Signor Nervi delivered his lecture in Italian with the help of an interpreter to render the English translation.