James Sutherland History Lecture 2019: Pier Luigi Nervi

The James Sutherland History Lecture 2019 was given by Thomas Leslie, author of Beauty's Rigor: Patterns of Production in the Work of Pier Luigi Nervi. Thomas is currently Morrill Professor in Architecture at Iowa State and holds an adjunct position in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. Pier Luigi Nervi was hailed as a master of structural engineering and architectural form; a "poet in concrete". Using original drawing from the Nervi archives, digital reconstructions of key works, and Nervi's own written words, this presentation will explore Nervi's aesthetic philosophy, showing how he negotiated structural and fabricational 'truths' with one another to create works that celebrated the constraints that he practiced within.