04/10/2022
Remembering Massimo Narduzzo
On the 10th of September, architect Massimo Narduzzo passed away unexpectedly. We would like to remember him here with affection for the splendid work he conducted with Giuseppe Ruscica for the recovery and restoration of Pier Luigi Nervi's Cartiera Burgo.
It was an honour for us to be able to inaugurate the exhibition activities of the Laboratorio Nervi on the Polo territoriale di Lecco - Politecnico di Milano campus with a presentation of this intervention, accompanied by a lecture that Massimo gave for us on April the 7th, which you can find on the Laboratorio's YouTube channel.
Reading his curriculum vitae, one realises that Massimo Narduzzo embodied the figure of the all-round architect, so to speak, rich in experience from which he derived a natural authority, which characterised his person and made his achievements seem normal. His works bear witness to this, from the South to the North of the Peninsula. But, beyond his intense professional activity, his interests were aligned with the most advanced contents of the discipline and directed, in particular, to the problems of restoration and masonry consolidation in buildings of historical value through the use of (always) current materials, such as steel and wood, used in a non-invasive manner.
If the Cartiera Burgo Paper Mill is unique in Pier Luigi Nervi's production and in the panorama of Italian architecture, its restoration must also be considered a unique intervention due to the singularity of the factory and of the consequent design choices made in its recovery; but, at the same time, it is rich in guidelines and exemplary for the design criteria that inspired it, useful on a methodological level for other interventions. On 1 September 2021, the work was awarded the Docomomo Rehabilitation Award in Tokyo by Docomomo International in the "Sustainable Interventions" category. The facilities were renewed, the Beloit paper machine replaced, the support structures for the new machine modified, and a number of oxidised steel posts replaced. But the façades were almost completely restored, the concrete trestles, internal pillars, exposed brick walls and metal roof structure were restored, preserving the functions where they were. The factory, strong in its identity, can now head towards the future. We are grateful to Massimo.
Until the end of the year, it will be possible to visit at the Laboratorio Nervi the exhibition dedicated to the recovery of the Burgo Paper Mill by Massimo Narduzzo, before its relocation to the Politecnico di Milano Mantua Campus.
