Military Contribution to Building Technical Evolution in Italy (1860-1940)

In the second half of the nineteenth century in Italy great transformations occurred in construction industry. National unification (1861) obliged to improve fortifications and to build many new barracks, therefore it was necessary to expand Engineer Corps enlisting military officers from dissolved armies of the former states; coincidently the Military Schools were reorganized. The professors of these teaching institutions contributed to develop and to spread new construction techniques and theories publishing manuals and papers, establishing a school that gave military engineer a technical and scientific training corresponding to European culture. Moreover their activity played a part in determining civil architecture thanks to the diffusion of their technical and theoretical work. A few of these teachers worked out original analysis methods for the design of reinforced concrete structures that had been thus precociously used in military constructions. Among these professors we can particularly mention generals Sachero, Castellazzi, Caveglia and Marrullier.