Chiusure verticali in acciaio e vetro: analisi di alcune singolari sperimentazioni italiane

Beginning from Sixties in the last century, in Italy, one of trends of applie re-search which most experimentations of steel combine with glass, gather on, con-cerns the study and the development of transparent covering. In this period for Italian designers the curtain wall becomes a technology with specific characteristics and consequently a well delineated linguistical ambit. This system is applied especially in office-buildings. Particularly in Rome, besides to the Directional Centre ENI (1960 – 1962) by Baciagalupo and Ugo Ratti, which represents perhaps the most emblematical real-ization, a series of exemplary projects have been built, like the seat of ESSO by Luigi Moretti in the EUR (1961 – 1965) where the covering is marke by project-ing elements which design a thick frame and several examples, less important but expressive in the same time, such as the RAI directional center (1961 – 1965), the INA black (1961) and other ones. Near these buildings, where both the main structure and the front one are of steel, there are other ones, such as the office-block in Via Torino by Adalberto Libera (1956 – 1958) and the Pirelli sky-scraper in Milan by Gio Ponti (1955 – 1960), where the load-bearing skeleton of the building is of reinforce cement and the fronts are projecte out with curtain wall of metal and glass. The paper inquires how in some cases of study, coverings base on a building process which combines steel and glass, have characterize significates experimen-tations in the wide outline of modern Architecture.