A historical archive for Nervi’s masterpieces

The Pirelli tower, one of the most representative buildings in the city of Milan, is now at the end of its service life, as many other iconic pieces of modern architecture. Today, commitment in the research of new solutions in the construction field has to be dedicated, to the same extent, to the knowledge and conservation of the existing architectural heritage. In order to keep the historical memory of the Pirelli building, the purpose of this work is to connect it to the present situation and, in particular, to the current codes, which are more restrictive than those applied in the past, both for verification methods and loading conditions acting on the structure. For these reasons, a linear-elastic structural check was carried out for the main structural elements of the tower and this showed that some of them are not fulfilling the current requirements. Therefore, a non-linear analysis was also performed, in order to evaluate the redundancy of the structure and , if possible, to exclude the need of any strengthening measure.