Parabeton

PARABETON starts with the first still exstant dome built of concrete by the Romans in the 1st century BC in Baiae near Naples. Followed in chronological sequence by 17 buildings of Italian civil-engineer Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979) – inventor, grandmaster of concrete structures and the architect’s architect of the 20th century: among others the Pirelli-skysraper in Milano, the Headquarters of Unesco in Paris, the Palazzo del Lavoro in Turin,  the Palazzo dello Sport in Rome and the Papal Audience Hall at Vatican City. This succession is from time to time halted by cinematic studies of large Roman structures, among others the Pantheon and the Baths of Caracalla in Rome and Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. In doing so the film relates Nervi’s path-breaking constructions with the pioneering Roman inventions in his field 2000 years ago.

The film is the first part of the series DECAMPMENT OF MODERNISM (which also includes PERRET IN FRANCE AND ALGERIA and THE AIRSTRIP) with which Heinz Emigholz concludes his series ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOBIOGRAPHY about the origins, fate, glory and decline of modern architecture. In a way, PARABETON is the “grand finale” of the series by going back to the Roman origins of the constructional core of Modernism.