1960 Royal Gold Medal

摘要

By the time the Games of the XVII Olympiad opened in Rome in 1960, Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979) had already received his Royal Gold Medal, marking his pivotal 'builder engineer' role, that helped push the boundaries of reinforced concrete construction in modern architecture. Behind him would have been a significant body of work; among it the Paris Unesco headquarters, the Pirelli Tower in Milan designed with Gio Ponti, Naples rail station, Rome airport and a key role advising on the city's huge Termini Station. The 1960 Olympics saw him design his most idiosyncratic work; with the Palazzo dello Sport and Stadio Flaminio in Rome, and the Palazzetto dello Sport in EUR, all completed 1957-59. With their stunning, contemporary, prefabricated concrete vaulting set in the home of the Pantheon, one imagines their poetic engineering sealed the deal with the Gold Medal judges.