The Italian architect, engineer, and builder Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979) was one of the most inventive exploiters of reinforced-concrete construction of the 20th century.

Reinforced concrete, a material combining the monolithic compressive strength of concrete with the tensile strength of steel reinforcing rods, entered the history of architecture at the end of the 19th century in France. The earlier patented processes of Joseph Monier, François Coignet, and others were applied by François Hennebique at the Charles VI Mill at Tourcoing (1895) and by Anatole de Baudot in the church of St-Jean-de-Montmartre in Paris (1894-1897). Those were the first significant uses of reinforced concrete for large-scale architectural problems. Some later builders used reinforced concrete in traditional, linear ways; others recognized that the material could accommodate an experimental approach using continuous curving systems. Pier Luigi Nervi was a leader in the latter approach.

Born on June 21, 1891, in...