Word: cement
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...demolished northern Italy. A stupid thing to say, I know, for even before the War Nervi had demonstrated undeniable genius as an engineer. Yet Nervi's is the genius of solving problems. Destruction and financial ruin in Italy necessitated speed and economy, driving Nervi to the discovery of "ferro-cement," a new reinforced concrete--cheaper, more elastic, and, of the essence, more rapidly constructed than older versions...
Nervi graduated from the Civil Engineering School of Bologna in 1913 and immediately joined the growing number of engineers who saw in reinforced concrete the revolutionary solution to Italy's historic poverty of steel and concrete. He regards his next years, spent working for a firm of cement contractors (with the interruption of military service), as formative. "It was here that I really learned of concrete's great number...
...constructing the spiral stairs that Nervi first hindered by the rigidity which an interior timber formwork imposed on reinforced concrete. The next twelve years witnessed Nervi's various modifications of the skeleton of reinforced concrete and "in retrospect' strikingly continuous progression toward ferro-cement...
...material substituted flexible steel mesh for timber, in a way that simplified the cementing process and thus allowed for vital short-cuts in reinforced concrete construction. The substance could be mass-produced at a ferro-cement factory established by Nervi in 1945. Prefabrication, a second vital innovation, allowed the builder to transport parts from a center of mass production to the building site and simplified the actual job of erecting the structure...
Bosley Crowther (and many others) urged me to see an "absolutely staggering" picture--a funfest of wild drinking, bad words, sexy scenes and naughty thoughts, with a few fat moral issues to cement them together in the plot. But this movie is not a celebration of barbarism, nor even a squalid stripping of souls on the "Marty" bandwagon. If you arrive drunk or depressed you may not enjoy yourself, because there are admittedly some pretty unpleasant scenes. Your date may not enjoy herself, because there's no heroine to identify with...