Construction, Maintenance and Diagnostics of a Waterfront Building.The Genoa Palasport (1960-1963)

At the end of the 1950s, Genoa – a city whose dense urban fabric was already fully saturated – expanded along its waterfront to create new exhibition and trade-fair facilities (area designed by Luigi Daneri). The Palasport was envisaged as the fulcrum of the project. The building, designed by F. Sironi, L. Martinoia, L. Finzi and R. Pagani, was innovative in terms of both structure and materials. The designers were undoubtedly familiar with famous constructions created by Pier Luigi Nervi or with the United States Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Expo and the Sports Arena in Raleigh (North Carolina). Completed in 1963, the Palasport was given a very favourable review by the architect and art historian Bruno Zevi; its outstanding formal qualities would also determine its future fate. Nowadays, substantial redevelopment of the entire area has led to the replacement of some of the original trade fair pavillons. The Palasport, with its characteristic circular form, seems to stand as a possible symbol of the area and it has been the object of a complex and costly programme of maintenance, designed to remedy the effects of ageing materials, and the damage caused by aggressive action of sea air and sea spray (the building stands right next to the sea). The building is coming at the end of its “service life”, as conceived for reinforced concrete structures built more than 50 years ago. The research that we proposed have focused, by on-site and laboratory tests, the role of carbonation and presence of chlorides in the processes of corrosion of the bars, main cause of reinforced concrete decay, highlighting the importance of dialogue between historical research and engineering investigations on deteriorated materials, to design a special programme of maintenance for building under aggressive conditions.