Engineering solutions after the Messina 1908 earthquake Available to Purchase

On 28 December 1908, a powerful earthquake of equivalent magnitude 7·1 hit Messina and southern Calabria, in Italy. The seismic event created tens of thousands of victims and had a deep impact on Italian society. Alongside government interventions, there were also several private initiatives, including a competition in Milan. The call for proposals for earthquake-resistant construction elicited international attention. The general discussion presented in the competition judges' report is relevant from many points of view and is briefly summarised here. Among the award-winning projects, this paper describes and discusses the reinforced masonry building proposed by Italians Vittorio Gianfranceschi and Giulio Revere, the steel-reinforced concrete structure of Austrian Fritz von Emperger and the reinforced concrete moment-resisting frame designed by Frenchman Edmond Coignet. These proposals provided original ideas, some of which were backed up by some of the first computations in earthquake engineering.