Agnelli Pavilion of the Exhibition Palace

Pier Luigi Nervi – Turin Exhibition Center, 1947-1949

The Agnelli Pavilion (ex hall B) is a large rectangular space characterized by a ribbed sail vault resting on four arches.
Pier Luigi Nervi put in place the largest ferrocement building in the world: a hall 110.5 meters long and 95 wide, distributed like a basilica, with an apsed part of glass 30 meters in diameter overlooking the Valentino park and with a rectangular surface free of intermediate supports (75 meters long x 81 meters wide), punctuated only by inclined lateral pillars, which branch out with shelves supporting the galleries of the galleries above, and covered by a large vault.
The vault is given by arches made up of prefabricated ferrocement elements on site, raised and mounted with a system of mobile scaffolding. The system of prefabricated wave segments (with built-in windows) and scaffolding, as well as that of the half-dome roof of the apsidal part, obtained with concrete castings made between more than 300 lozenge shapes also in ferrocement and also produced on site, they are patented by Pier Luigi Nervi himself.