In research
there is no such thing as straightforward searching: the more time you spend in
archives the more complex the picture gets. Let me use a recent experience of mine as an example. A few weeks
ago I decided to take a train to Parma and visit the Pier Luigi Nervi Archive. It
is housed at the CSAC, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, in the
Valserena Abbey.
CSAC, Valserena Abbey, Parma. Photo: Mariana Siracusa
The Wizard of Concrete had been in the back of my mind for a
long time and I was particularly interested in studying his first American project. John
M. Kyle, Chief Engineer of the Port of New York Authority, commissioned the Washington
Bridge Bus Terminal to Nervi in 1958. The building together with the Washington Bridge Apartments designed by Guenther & Brown and a parking structure were to rise on an existing
metal structure conceived as part of the Washington Bridge Extension
Complex to span the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, the only expressway planned by Robert Moses to be ever constructed.
Washington Bridge, photo: Jet Lowe, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, HAER NY,31-NEYO,161--79
Nervi’s drawings
for the Bus Terminal are breathtaking. By the summer of 1959 all major
decisions had been taken. By May 1960 the reinforcement details were defined
and by July of the same year the labor schedule was established. The drawings
are numbered and it is therefore relatively easy to trace back all design
developments.
Pier Luigi Nervi, Perspective of the Bus Passenger Facility, CSAC, Coll. 155/6, Inv. PRA662
Nervi worked
out multiple solutions for the elevations as well as for the precast roof
panels. Today we read the isometric views of the reinforced roof panels, the rib
beams, the truss girders, the center-line columns and the detailed forked
column supporting the spine beams at Fort Washington Av. as witnesses of a job
that was carried out almost entirely by hand. The computer of the Department of
Mathematics of the University of Roma was used only when it was time to
calculate the complex equations of the roof’s static system.
Everything
else was worked out on paper. All details – reinforcement details, drainage
details, framework details, and force diagrams – came together in a building
that achieved a perfect score. It quickly gained great media coverage.
Pier Luigi Nervi, Longitudinal section, CSAC, Coll. 155/6, Inv. PRA662
Pier Luigi Nervi, East Elevation (Solution I), CSAC, Coll. 155/6, Inv. PRA662
But even when the
drawings clarify the design process, questions arise on how an Italian engineer that had never built anything in the United States and didn't speak any English got such an
important commission in the first place. While the bulk of the drawings are in Parma, the photographic archive and the correspondences are part of the Pier Luigi Nervi Archive at the MAXXI in Rome, but there is no trace there. As Alberto
Bologna pointed out in his well-researched Pier Luigi Nervi negli Stati Uniti
1952-1979, archival research doesn't allow today to piece together how Nervi got the commission. The archives of the Port of New York Authority were housed at the World
Trade Centre and were destroyed on September 11th, 2001. Bologna anyway has devoted two chapters to Nervi’s presence on the America press and his relations with
American cultural institutions since 1952, which is the year when Walter
Gropius, Sven Markelius, Lucio Costa and Ernesto Nathan Roger selected him
to work with Marcel Breuer and Bernard Zehrfuss on the project for the UNESCO building in Paris. In 1953 the project was also debated at the CIAM and Nervi got in touch with José Luis Sert who was by then Dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.
Roof of the Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, photo: Arno Hammacher, Regione Lombardia, AHM foglio 380 FT. 38a
Nervi's international network somehow reminded me about Othmar Ammann's political and entrepreneurial efforts in order to design and build the Washington Bridge (1923-1931). Doig and Billington's article have shed light on the topic as well as Doig's book Empire on the Hudson. Of course the thorough researcher won't stop at Ammann and will then start studying the work of Robert Moses, who also had a starring role in shaping New York's transit infrastructure. The controversies surrounding the Cross-Bronx Expressway case are particularly interesting in relation to the Washington Bridge and the Trans-Manhattan Expressway and open a whole different chapter of the research. I refer you to The Power Broker by Robert Caro.
George Washington Bridge, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, HAER NY,31-NEYO,161--33
George Washington Bridge, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, HAER NY,31-NEYO,161--39
Cross-Bronx Expressway, photos: Jack E. Boucher, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division,
HAER NY,3-BRONX,13--45/46
Lets stay here on Washington Heights and mention “The
Apartments” with their soot-repelling aluminum skin that was supposed to keep out pollution and noise. The buildings are one of the first highway air-rights developments in the United States and have been largely debated. While Nervi decided on an open structure that would allow for ventilation of the bus platforms inside and the expressway three levels below, Guenther and Brown created a sealed interior, "a protected space in an otherwise intolerable zone of the city." But the integrated interior ventilation and air conditioning system were dropped due to cost overruns and the levels of pollution remained always alarming. The article by David Gissen explains quite well the case.
Washington Bridge Bus Passenger Terminal, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, HAER NY,31-NEYO,161--20
This is just to say that the researcher can either choose what will or will not be included in the final narrative each step of the way, or get lost in countless tangents. I think it is important to acknowledge the complexity of each and every subject and take some time to get lost before defining a rigorous research agenda. We can eventually change our minds only by leaving our comfort zone.
Further reading
Bologna, Alberto. Pier Luigi Nervi negli Stati Uniti. Master Builder of the Modern Age.
Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2013.
Caratzas, Michel Dimitrios. Cross-Bronx, Trans-Manhattan: Preserving aSignificant Urban Expressway and its Megastructure. Dissertation, GSAPP,
Columbia University, May 2002.
Caro, Robert A. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York City. New
York: Alfred A. Knopk, 1974.
Doig, Jameson W. Empire on the Hudson: Entrepreneurial Vision and Political Power at the
Port of New York Authority. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Doig, Jameson W. and David P.
Billington. “Ammann’s First Bridge: A Study in Engineering, Politics, and Entrepreneurial Behavior.” Technology and
Culture, Vol. 35, No. 3 (July, 1994): 537-70.
Gissen, David. “Exhaust and territorialisation at the Washington Bridge Apartments, New York City,1963-1973.” The Journal of Architecture,
Vol. 12, No. 4 (2007).
Huxtable, Ada Louise. Pier Luigi Nervi. New York: G.
Braziller, 1960.
Katznelson, Ira. City Trenches. Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United
States. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Nervi, Pier Luigi. Structures. New York: F. W. Dodge, 1956.
Nervi, Pier Luigi. Scienza o arte del costruire?
Caratteristiche e possibilità del cemento armato. Roma: Edizioni della
Bussola, 1945.
Saint, Andrew. Architect and Engineer. A Study in Sibling Rivalry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Saint, Andrew. Architect and Engineer. A Study in Sibling Rivalry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Archives
CSAC: Centro
Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università degli Studi di Parma
MAXXI: Museo
Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, Roma
LCPPD: Library
of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
HAMM: Fondo
Arno Hammacher, Regione Lombardia, Milano
NYPL: Robert
Moses papers, New York Public Library, New York
