MILAN, November 25, 2019 – “It is important to preserve the past in order to safeguard and build the future. This must be done by a collaboration between private companies and public institutions: a partnership to develop public works, to be done today much like it was done 50 years ago,” said Joseph Attias, head of Group Engineering, Development and Concessions at Salini Impregilo, at the inauguration of the exhibit “Il Viaggio del Faraone – Due secoli di presidio veneto a salvaguardia dei Templi” (The Pharaoh’s Voyage: Two Centuries of Veneto Commitment to Safeguarding the Temples) in Padova, Italy on November 23. It is the latest recounting of an operation by a consortium of large international companies including Salini Impregilo that became an example of engineering excellence and international collaboration between the private and public sectors. “An enterprise made possible thanks to the joining of forces, involving the Egyptian government, UNESCO and all the companies that accepted the challenge of supporting progress – which, at the time, was represented by the Aswan Dam, a strategic development for the country – while all the while safeguarding a cultural heritage for the benefit of future generations”.

Organized by the Associazione Gabinetto di Lettura, together with the city of Padova and Salini Impregilo, the exhibit at the Zuckermann Palace was inaugurated in the presence of Andrea Colasio, the city official responsible for culture. It examines the transfer of the Abu Simbel Temples within the context of the Manifestazioni Belzoniane (Belzoni Manifestations), which celebrate the 200th anniversary of the return home of the man who discovered the entrance to the archeological site: the Padova native Giovanni Battista Belzoni.

The exhibit is free and runs until January 12. Visitors will discover the various stages of the project, beginning with the international call for help by UNESCO in 1960 with support from original documents provided by the Associazione Archivio Gazzola and Luigi Rossato, an engineer at Impregilo who was involved in the stone-cutting. There are also documents from Salini Impregilo, recently published in “Nubiana” a book by publisher Rizzoli sponsored by the Group and the Egypt Museum of Turin. Salini Impregilo’s unique archive is the result of an accumulation of documents held by various companies that date back to 1906, the year of the first photo. It has come to house 1.25 million photos organised and digitised by the Group, together with 750 videos that include documentaries by Ermanno Olmi on the construction of dams for the Edison power utility in the first half of the 1900s.

Salini Impregilo has often provided support to the preservation of cultural heritage. It built a culture centre in Athens to house the national library and opera house and a music auditorium in Rome, while in Thessaloniki, it is working alongside archeologists to preserve an import ancient Roma road called the Decumanus Maximus that was discovered during the construction of the city’s first metro line. Such efforts have also been made in Rome during construction of the Line B1, which also uncovered relics of the ancient city.