Mario Salvadori
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Mario Salvadori (1907-1997) was an architect, structural engineer and professor of both civil engineering and architecture at Columbia University. During World War II he was a consultant on the Manhattan Project. He was born in Rome, Italy in 1907. He earned doctoral degrees in both civil engineering and mathematics from the University of Rome in 1930 and 1933 respectively. He spent the next five years on that university's faculty.
Salvadori immigrated from Italy in 1938 and worked for Lionel Train Company until 1940. He turned down a job offer to become the CEO, but instead took up teaching at Columbia University. He taught there for 50 years. During his time as a professor at Columbia, he volunteered to work with under privileged, minority students from intercity New York. He was able to reach over 100,000 children during his time. In 1987 he founded the Salvadori Educational Center on the Built Environment (since renamed the Salvadori Center), a non-profit educational center on the campus of City College of New York dedicated to helping inner-city youth learn to appreciate mathematics and science.
From 1945 to 1960, Salvadori worked as a consultant at Weidlinger Associates in New York City. He then became a partner until 1991, when he became honorary chair. As a structural engineer, Salvadori strived for great architecture in all of his projects.
Salvadori was also the author of several popular textbooks during his time. Some of these books include: Structural Design in Architecture (1967),Why Buildings Stand Up (1980), and Why Buildings Fall Down (1992). In 1993 Salvadori became the first engineer to receive the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education.
