L'uso dei blocchi in laterizio nelle costruzioni voltate

At the end of the thirties the manufacturers research relating to construction elements was directed to the development of procedures aimed at a rapid realization of vaulted elements. The basic idea was to use load-bearing linear structures combined with lightning brick elements, as it was previously done for horizontals structures. This idea developed light vaults in brick and reinforced concrete with a small thickness, prefabricated or cast on site. This type of vault was majorly used to solve the problem concerning the construction of large roofing. The proceeding to realize vaults cast on site was to use light brick blocks shaped to accommodate the steel bars. Arches supported the blocks and a concrete casting was poured on top of them. The introduction of prefabricated elements lead to the proliferation of many patent-protected construction systems, which included the use of precast reinforced bricks to form straight or curved beams largely employed to build barrel vault, lowered and with eliminated trust, conoid, hyperbolic paraboloid or ellipsoidal roofing. These thin vaults fascinated great personalities of the Italian architectural world, so same structures built in those years are nowadays suggestive evidence of the researches on the expressive potentials of such forms.