Auditorium Oscar Niemayer of Ravello – Salerno

The architect Oscar Niemeyer was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1907 and is considered one of the most important contemporary authors on an international level. A pioneer in the exploration of the constructive possibilities of reinforced concrete, its buildings are characterized by the design of dynamic forms and curves with sensual features. Niemeyer is interested in the design of the Ravello Auditorium in 2000 thanks to Secondo Amalfitano, in those years the mayor of the town. The architect works on the concept intensely and enthusiastically setting the project objectives with great clarity: to create an architectural complex with contained costs, simple and daring at the same time, capable of inserting an unmistakable but not dystonic sign in the Ravello landscape. In September 2000, in his Avenida Atlantica studio in Rio de Janeiro, Oscar Niemeyer donated to the town of Ravello, through Domenico De Masi, President of the Ravello Association and a dear friend of the architect, the model of the auditorium and the square, 10 tables of drawings with the description of the project that ends like this: “And I start to imagine, satisfied, this square built, worthy – perhaps – of the city of Ravello, one of the most beautiful in Italy”.
With the opening of the construction site, in June 2007, a close, strongly synergistic collaboration between different designers and companies began. Thus Niemeyer and his structurist Josè Carlos Sussekind meet Ing. Giampiero Martuscelli and Ing. Andrea Pacifico – Technical Director of the PA.CO. Pacifico Costruzioni S.p.A. and the arch. Francesco Bonfantino – giving the start of a happy working relationship in which the Technical Office of the Municipality of Ravello has also played an important role. Objectives common to all were to adapt the regulatory framework of the project born in Brazil to the European rules and to make the work realized to the architect’s thought perfectly matched. The particularity of the work is given by the reinforced concrete structure free of pillars so as to make the acoustics of the hall perfect. For the realization of the same last generation materials have been used, such as the FLC32 closed cable suspension stays and Ancon MBT bolt sleeves to obtain loads higher than the yield strength of the bar thus avoiding the classic junction of the reinforcement rods of the concrete. Work has also been carried out on specialist finishes and furnishings and particular attention has been paid to the care of the aspects related to the auditorium acoustics and stage design.
– 1.300.000 kg. of iron for concrete reinforcement – 13,000 cubic meters. concrete – 124,000 kg. of metallic carpentry – 12,000 square meters of REI plaster
– 11,000 square meters of special formwork – 10,000 kg. of stainless steel – 3,500 square meters insulation with expanded polyurethane