28–06–24
Authors:
Jenna Schnitzler
Inge Donovan
Mohamed Ismail
Caitlin T. Mueller
8th International Congress on Construction History at ETH Zurich
Link to paper
Abstract:
This paper traces the technical lineage of three Italian prefabricated concrete building systems designed by the structural engineer Aldo Favini (1916-2013) and architect Angelo Mangiarotti (1921-2012) between 1956 and 1965. These systems were developed in the context of post-war reconstruction to meet the demands of a rapidly expanding Italian building sector faced with severe material constraints. A pattern emerges in their work, in which a commission to design an individual structure is treated as an opportunity to test novel constructive systems with the potential for scaled production and serial deployment. A technical reading of the three case studies—the system developed for the parish church at Baranzate (Favini, Mangiarotti, and Morassutti, 1956), the AL.FA slab (Favini, 1965), and the FM system (Mangiarotti, 1964)—reveals a period of experimentation with on- and off-site prefabrication through variable discretization and shaping of the structural frame. Further analysis of their structural performance, production, and assembly reveals the effect of the new technical regime of prefabricated, prestressed elements that had emerged only a few decades prior, and situates these systems in a unique design space where negotiations between function and expression, standardization and optimization, and seriality and originality manifested.
Research, Concrete, Conferences