ABSTRACT
The paper explains the role of Claudio Marcello (1901–69) in the history of Italian structural engineering, and in particular his contribution to the language of “Italian Style” dams. Marcello designed about 40 dams, in the Alps, Sicily, Sardinia and abroad, in less than 30 years as technical director of Edison (1937–63), working in the extraordinary period of post-World War II and Italy’s economic boom. The unique character of its design is internationally recognised right from the start. In Marcello’s works, the very characteristics of 20th-century Italian engineering are readable, as investigated during the Research Project SIXXI–XX Century Structural Engineering: the Italian Contribution, ERC Advanced Grant 2012, headed by Sergio Poretti and Tullia Iori at Rome Tor Vergata University.
