The photographic albums
Pier Luigi Nervi has used the photographic medium as a precious communication tool, capable of supporting and giving strength to all the Studio’s activities, both in the strictly professional field and in the scientific and didactic ones.
The photographic materials conserved in the MAXXI Architecture Collections archive are numerous and very varied in terms of type: photographs, plates, slides, negatives, specimens, and photocopies, comprehensively represent the activities of the architect and his Studio.
The albums are a further type of collection of photographic material, consisting of 21 large-format binders (approx. 50×35 cm), with cardboard sheets and rigid canvas covers.
Most of them contain photographs related to single projects and are therefore single-issue, others contain significant selections of photographs of several projects and works that were probably used as a presentation and promotion of the various activities; as very often the name of the photographic studio is written in hand.
The Album 19 alone collects small, black and white proofs, on average 5×4 cm, from a selection of slides, in turn subdivided by themes and numbered, to which the numbering refers.
They are images with an uneven theme, varying from graphic designs to construction site photos to architectural or construction details, subdivided by themes and indexed; they reflect the personal and professional interests of the architect and were probably also used for teaching purposes.
Some of the pages of the albums are full of references to the architecture of the past, Gothic cathedrals with views of the interiors, from bottom to top, capturing the smallest details of spires or pinnacles, arches, and rose windows, showing how much Nervi cared about references to the history of architecture; and even the filming technique refers to the representation of the architecture realised by the Studio.
The richness and variety of the materials available in the archive, which we can consider complementary to traditional graphics, better define Nervi’s design activity and testify to the professional aptitude for representation and the preservation and cataloguing of every detail of what was conceived and realised by what was one of the most important studios on the Italian and international scene.