Reinforced concrete in Italy through the works of two generations of engineers: Mario and Giorgio Baroni

The study of Mario and Giorgio Baroni permits us, through their respective biographies, to read into important aspects of the passage from the early theory of reinforced concrete through to the most advanced experiences of the 1950s. On one side there is Mario Baroni, a great teacher and innovative designer who transferred a fine interpretation of the distribution of tension in reinforced concrete components to the development of patents. On the other, his son Giorgio Baroni experimented with systems for the development of thin concrete shell roofs, patenting a system for vaults formed by four sections of hyperbolic paraboloid from 1936 onwards. Therefore he can be considered to be primarily responsible for the introduction of this system of construction in Italy. Both father and son are, in their own rights, representatives of two quite different eras of design and construction, and this paper will retrace their life and works with the aim of exploring a unique case of knowledge transfer in the development of the evolution of engineering.