Riccardo Morandi and the aesthetics of structures in architectural and landscape design

MAXXI Architettura Archives Centre – admittance free subject to availability of places

With the construction of the bridge over the Maracaibo lagoon in Venezuela, an extraordinary megastructure of a world record 9 kilometres in length, Riccardo Morandi achieved the international fame and acclaim as master builder of bridges and viaducts, earning the epithet Le Corbusier on four wheels.

Both worked in Rome and their actions emerge inevitably, without ever intersecting: Morandi and Nervi, protagonists of the season of great Italian engineering.

In 1962, both were awarded prizes by Aitec Associazione Italiana Tecnico Economica del Cemento – for their diverse but equally remarkable masterpieces that were to mark the history of architecture: the palazzo dello Sport (1957-59)in Rome for Nervi and the Underground Pavilion in Turin (1961) for Morandi.
The props in reinforced concrete to which the slim vaults of Nervi’s roof elegantly conform, are countered by Morandi with the imposing blocks of the portals, the powerful masses in finely calibrated equilibrium of his prestressed structures.

The conference investigates not only Morandi’s professional career, but also the expressive quality and the innovative aesthetic charge that marks his masterpieces. A specific section is devoted to the relationship between the built work and its insertion into the landscape and a concluding focus looks at the extensive archive the great engineer’s heirs have deposited in the Central State Archive in Rome.

Speakers
Marzia Marandola Sapienza University, Rome
Maurizio Morandi
Flavia Lorello Central State Archive, Rome