PRESS NOTE

Milan, June 23, 2016 - In the presence of Architect Renzo Piano, Pietro Salini, Chief Executive of Salini Impregilo, and Andreas Dracopoulos, co-President of Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the doors to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center were opened to the public today. The Center in Athens was built by Salini Impregilo as head of a joint-venture with Greek partner Terna and financed by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for €596 million.

“For us, the Cultural Center represents a dream come true, the chance to build a visionary project by Renzo Piano that many had deemed impossible to do, bringing engineering and art together to realize a project for current and future generations,” says Salini, visiting the center together with Piano. “It is an occasion to celebrate not only the realization of a visionary project, of which we are proud to have been a part, but also of the success in urban renewal based on the idea that public works can lead to social and economic development.”

The event marks the beginning of Metamorphosis, a four-day event of meetings, artistic and cultural performances and guided tours of the center. More than 70,000 expected visitors are expected to come discover the secrets of the Center, a project unique in the world that will house the National Library with its two million books and the Greek National Opera.

Built on the site of an old hippodrome in the neighbourhood of Kallithea near the sea, the Center rises out of an artificial slope of a panoramic park 170,000 square metres in size and planted with 1,500 trees and 200,000 shrubs from all over Europe. But the big innovation of the Center is its capacity to combine art with technical excellence. One of the most obvious examples of this combination is the Canopy, a roof of 10,000 square metres that is suspended over the Center. Thanks to sophisticated technology, it shifts according to the wind and the change in temperature. Its surface is completely covered with solar panels, helping make the Center energy self-sufficient.