The shell structures of the Baroque

Abstract

The Baroque has been traditionally a style minimized by its tendency to decoration and its lack of the systematic. Gradually it has left demonstrating that this was a prejudice and that the architectural values were of first magnitude, comparable to the biggest landmarks of classic styles. As for the structural aspects we want to demonstrate that they overcome to as much as it was made previously by their space wealth, their economy of means and the intelligence of their solutions. Somehow they represent an antecedent of the shell architecture that so much it would make an exhibition with the Reinforced Concrete and the analytic techniques of dimensioning. With less means but with great intuition, the Baroque, invented forms of a complexity that today is still difficult to understand, at least geometrically. Paradoxically there are no investigations that help us to clarify the structural miracle of the Baroque since up to now it has been in historians' hands and not those of architects or engineers. This article tries to open the road in this unexplored field.