ArchiNervi. The architecture of the digital archive

ArchiNervi is a new digital archive that restores the Studio Nervi archive as it was structured by Pier Luigi Nervi and his Studio from the early 1920s until its transfer to CSAC and MAXXI between 1986 and 2004.

The Studio Nervi archive, already declared of historical interest in 1979, as indicated in the Unified Information System for the Supervision Agencies, was subsequently partly transferred to the CSAC of the University of Parma and donated in 1986. The documentary fund that remained in Rome at the heirs of the Nervi family, declared in 2002 of notable historical interest by the Archival Superintendence for Lazio, was acquired in 2004 by the General Directorate for Architecture and Contemporary Art for the MAXXI Architecture collections, which supervised the inventory, entrusted to Carla Zhara Buda with the collaboration of Irene Nervi.

It is precisely because of these two acquisition histories that the two fonds have a different nature, although they are profoundly complementary: a prevalence of graphic design materials in Parma, an articulation in documentary series that collect documents of a different nature in Rome. Cataloguing was also conducted according to different criteria: CSAC conducted cataloguing by projects (869), consistent with the nature of the collection preserved in Parma, made accessible since 2004 through Sebina, a unified and integrated management software for library services, systems and library poles (http://biblioteche.parma.it/SebinaOpac/Opac.do).

MAXXI has created the inventory consisting of 6 series that has been published using Arianna, archival management software. MAXXI is also a partner in the special project promoted by the General Directorate for Archives, the Portal of Italian Architects of the Sistema Archivistico Nazionale (National Archive System http://inventari.fondazionemaxxi.it/AriannaWeb/main.htm#569820_archivio).

ArchiNervi enhances and increases these two tools by restoring the complexity of the history of Pier Luigi Nervi’s professional activity, providing information for access to the complex documentary system collected in different institutions, with the ambition of triggering a process of growth in research and the safeguarding of memory.

The creation of the new digital archive

ArchiNervi is a unified database of Studio Nervi’s projects created with shared archival management software and constructed from verification of the correspondences and complementarities between the 869 projects identified by CSAC in its registry and the 428 projects documented by MAXXI in the Professional Activities archive series. This database is the result of a campaign to revise the two catalogues, verify, standardise and integrate the data and then catalogue and analytically digitise a selection of 100 projects.

ArchiNervi now consists of 794 projects, some of which are divided into sub-projects, 100 of which have undergone analytical cataloguing and a digitisation campaign. More than 14,000 graphic materials have thus been catalogued and 1,744 drawings, including sketches, working drawings and calculation reports, have been digitised.

Surfing the archive

Compared to the articulation of projects identified in the two historical fonds, ArchiNervi presents some variations not only in the naming, but also in the organisation of the materials that became necessary after the verification work of the two databases and the project documents.

The navigation tree makes it possible to search within the inventory in which the projects (archival units) are arranged chronologically with some merging of projects and multi-layered organisation of other complex projects.
Compared to the two original databases, some groupings have been retained, such as Aircraft, while new ones have been created, such as: Tanks, Unidentified Projects, etc.
Some projects have been organised into sub-units to give a more analytical view of their history. This was made possible by cataloguing the individual graphic documents of the 100 selected projects, some of which are part of the groupings defined during the preliminary analysis. Examples include the Cartiera Burgo (Burgo Paper mill) project in Mantua or the Manifattura Tabacchi (Tobacco Factory) project in Bologna.

The activity of comparing the two historical funds has also made it possible to clarify certain data concerning previous inventories and cataloguing: chronology, commissions, collaborations, etc.

However, some documentary sections are still not traceable to specific assignments, while for others it has not been possible, based on the information attested by the materials, to attribute a date, place or commission. For these cases, a grouping of unidentified projects has been created pending future research. The database also contains several documentary cores relating to consulting activities.