Dear AAWE Members,

Professor Giovanni Solari
Professor Giovanni Solari

I would like to share with you the sad news about the passing of Professor Giovanni Solari, announced today by the ANIV (Italian National Association for Wind Engineering). The international wind engineering community mourns one of his pioneers. I am personally saddened by the news.

Professor Solari graduated from the University of Genoa (Italy) in 1977 where he started his academic career as an Assistant Professor, later promoted to Associate and Full Professor in 1990. His contributions to the field are numerous and very important, starting from his early studies on the dynamic structural response due to random, turbulent wind loads (which led to the Equivalent Wind Spectrum Technique), his studies on the wind field characterization for the Messina Bridge Design (which led to the use of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition for the simulation of wind and pressure fields), and to his recent work in the field of non-stationary wind loads and thunderstorms.His contributions also led to the modernization of the wind load Italian standards and the Eurocode (e.g. the Solari Spectrum).

As a faculty leader, Professor Solari founded the research group in wind engineering at the University of Genoa, which is currently recognized as one of the premier research groups by the international community. He was also among the funding members of the ANIV. He received numerous national and international awards.

As a person, he was a true gentleman, very supportive of young faculty members. Personally, I had the opportunity to meet him and get to know him from the academic point of view; he shared several invaluable research suggestions.

 

Professor Solari will be sorely missed by our community.

Yours Sincerely,

Luca Caracoglia

(on behalf of AAWE President and Board Members)