Never mentioned in his books, but always remembered as one of his most cherished works, the Augusteo cinema-theatre confirms Pier Luigi Nervi's ability to juggle daring hyperstatic structural solutions whose control is entrusted more to intuition and practical experience than to rigorous preventive calculation. In this work he further pushes forward research into three-dimensional reinforced concrete framework systems, conceived as resistant skeletons integrated with load-bearing masonry.
Located in the dense fabric of the historic centre of Naples, the building is the result of a modern real estate operation on the Vomero hill. The author of the project is the Roman architect Arnaldo Foschini, who turned to Nervi and Nebbiosi for the difficult execution of the roof. Nervi is thirty-five years old and is by now an established designer-entrepreneur who has already tried his hand several times with challenging roofs for large public spaces when he worked for Attilio Muggia's Sacc. Moreover, with Nervi and Nebbiosi, he has just completed the innovative 24-metre span reinforced concrete roofing of the Banchini Theatre in Prato.
The Naples project, however, is more complex. The most significant structure is the roof of the vast 30-metre diameter hall with an openable circular skylight in the centre, consisting of a radial system of 18 reticular beams from which tapering brackets cantilever, connected at the tip by a ring delimiting the central void. The height of the beams corresponds to the entire habitable top floor, and the diagonal struts are concealed in the partition walls of the office spaces. The horizontal connections between the pillars, along the inner perimeter of the hall, are joined at the corners to form a large annular Vierendeel beam that contributes to the torsional stability of the system. Finally, the two floor and roof slabs stiffen the structure in the horizontal plane.
