The building is made with primarily ferrocemento and glass. Ferrocemento is a form of concrete construction made with thin cross-sections of concrete and metal wires (reinforcement) with re-usable forms, which Nervi pioneered in Italy and elsewhere.
The boards in the hockey rink are stiffer than in a permanent facility, while the glass has more give. The facility was converted into an ice rink by laying a sand base and refrigeration pipes into the base, and then freezing water ice atop the substrate. This is similar to the temporary outdoor rink the NHL used for its Heritage Classic game in Edmonton.
After the Olympics were complete, the arena returned to hosting fairs and exhibitions.
In film
The building appears in a deleted scene from the 1969 film The Italian Job. A portion of the car chase was filmed as a dance between the Minis and police cars with a full orchestra playing "The Blue Danube" as accompaniment. The scene appears as an extra on home video releases.[3]
References
^Aesthetics and Technology in Building, Nervi, Pier Luigi, 1965, Harvard University Press, p.116
