Word: nerviness
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...spiral stairs represent an excellent example of the intimate relation between structure and form conceived by Nervi. Their immediate purpose, Nervi explained, was to prevent the logjams which inevitably occurred when masses of spectators crowded into the traditional interior tunnels. Their construction delayed the completion of the Stadium, yet in finished form they not only solved the problem of crowding, but were immediately recognizable even to the untrained eye as purely aesthetic triumphs...
...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...
...Nervi's ferro-cement dome ceilings, strengthened by corrogated beams are today among his most familiar works. Conceived an executed as technical problems, these domed ceilings nevertheless attain a soaring beauty not foreseen in by the builder--entirely dependent on structural design yet not included...
...What is beauty?" Nervi asks. "I am a builder. I am no artist. People tell me some of my designs are beautiful, and I am glad. But I don't aim at beauty." Nervi maintains that the different stresses which different situations place on the physical properties of reinforced concrete determine its basic form, leaving the architect a "margin of freedom" to decorate but preventing the aesthetic from ever being a fundamental architectural aim. Although structure in its immediate situation has always been his primary concern, in many of his constructions he himself demonstrates the beauty which...