Carena has more than a century of experience in the construction field.
The company’s history offers a cross-section of that of construction in Italy since 1866, when the Genoese entrepreneur Giuseppe Carena won a contract to build the Bellavista lighthouse in Sardinia.
Since then, the business has been led in succession by his sons Giovanni, Carlo and Antonio, and later by his grandsons Mario and Giobatta.
The Carena firm began working with the engineer Francesco Perri in 1930. With his innovative ideas and the help of highly specialized personnel, Perri enacted a major shift in the company’s management, which marked its evolution towards the status of a major organisation.
His close relationship with the Carena brothers enabled Engineer Perri to become a partner in the firm as it took on a more industrial character. Its nationwide presence was boosted when offices in Rome, Milan and Trieste were opened.
A large number of projects were carried out in this period, both in the civil sector and that of infrastructures.
In 1964, Francesco Perri was elected President of the ANCE (Italian National Construction Association). He remained in the role for 23 years, before staying on as Honorary President. As Perri was utterly committed to his work at ANCE, his son Pierluigi then took the helm at Carena.
These were the years of greatest prestige for Carena, during which the firm took part in major road construction projects: the Voltri-Ovada motorway, the Udine-Tarvisio, the Calabrian elevated road; the Turin-Savona motorway. It also built the Carlini and Ferraris stadiums in Genoa, the Nereo Rocco stadium in Trieste, as well as many other civil and industrial engineering projects. Among these, the Palazzo della Marineria (Marine Building) and the car terminal in the Silos in Trieste, and the Magazzini del Cotone (former Cotton Warehouses) for Expo 1992 in Genoa, are particularly noteworthy.
Leading the company today is Francesco Perri “the younger”, who shares not only his grandfather’s name, but also his great determination, and has lent his own personal style to its management.
Alongside the company’s historic work on public contracts in the major infrastructures sector, it has also carried out many assignments in project financing, real estate and car park construction.