An audacious technical object: the Saint Vincent city hall suspended building (1959 1965)
(2024) 8th International Congress on Construction History - Zurich — ISBN: [978-3-7281-4166-8], accepted/in-press
Files
No attached file found for this publication.
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- The Saint Vincent city hall (1959–1965) represents a key contribution to the European construction history. Designed by architect Enrico Villani in 1959, the building was initially considered too challenging to be constructed. The solution only came years later thanks to an original structural scheme conceived by engineer Antonio Migliasso. Migliasso, brought the architectural design to its technological limits, making of the Saint Vincent city hall the first Italian cable supported building. According to the suspension principle, four slabs hang from the roofing structure by means of prefabricated and prestressed concrete hangers. In this way, continuous open plans were obtained as well as a column-free terrace at the ground floor. At the same time, Migliasso’s proposal allowed to reduce by 80% the amount of steel, if compared to the commonly employed solutions, without increasing the overall cost of the project. The architectural, engineering, and construction challenges associated with the use of suspended systems resulted in a limited diffusion across Europe. Starting from the 1980s this principle was progressively abandoned, rapidly falling into historical oblivion. Stating the lack of research in the field and assuming the Saint Vincent city hall as case-study building, this contribution aims to delineate the most peculiar features of suspended architecture. The paper investigates the history of an emblematic realization, from the architectural concept to the structural design. Based on the interpretation of unpublished archival sources, enriched by the authors’ original documentation, this study aims to redefine the role of a pioneering building for the European construction history.
- Affiliations
Citations
Galbiati, G., Graf, F., & Marino, G. (2024). An audacious technical object: the Saint Vincent city hall suspended building (1959 1965). In Collectif d’auteurs (ed.), 8th International Congress on Construction History - Zurich. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/239940