In 1901 Adolfo set sail for Australia. Here he reinvited himself as a lumberjack, shepherd, miner, and gold digger. He crossed the continent on foot and horseback, without becoming involved in any building works. He did however learn English, and this experience enriched his understanding of people. After three years he returned to Italy where he began working on the Sempione railway toward Switzerland. In 1905 he set off for Tonkin, a territory in French Indochina, where a French company was designing and building a daring railway line. He was assigned a section of the railway. After the latest pestilence caused by tropical diseases, such as malaria, which caused the death of thousands of local laborers, the company suspended all work. The survivors returned to Europe and Italy. Adolfo soon set off for Hong Kong, on his own.

At Ghella, the example set by Adolfo stands to this day: the cultural wealth represented by our collaborators is considered a highly valuable resource. For the possibility to apply one’s knowledge to future situations still unknown to us, and unpredictable. It is always important to learn, even when we fail to understand any immediate or future usefulness.

At this time an English company was building a complex railway in Hong Kong, whose works were lagging behind due to particularly difficult excavations. Adolfo Ghella travelled to the site every day, forging personal relationships with the director of works, who offered him the contract to build the well as piecework. Adolfo reorganized the work site, surrounded himself with new staff, and drew on all the experience gained as a young boy working with his father, refined in successive projects, and things were soon back on track. He received his due recognition and his first financial success. In 1909 he was awarded the harbor project in Kowloon. These successes were followed by long years of profitable work on the Canton railway that advanced toward China, where he was also awarded the construction of the dam on the West River.

Resourcefulness, determination, experience, reliable methods and the right dose of courage. Values that continue to describe us perfectly.

In the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, Adolfo returned to Italy where he married Domenica, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. Domenica was the daughter of Giovanni Bertoglio, Adolfo’s companion in a thousand adventures. It was thanks to Giovanni, a prolific writer of letters and postcards from around the globe, that we have managed to faithfully reconstruct the dates of so many trips and construction sites. In 1912 Domenico Ghella was born, Adolfo and Domenica’s first child. The following year Adolfo returned to China for a brief period. Ghella was by now an internationally recognized company. Adolfo decided to return to Italy, though traveling via the American Continent. His arrival in San Francisco was even noted in the local press. He made it home just in time for the birth of his second child, Giovanni.

To this day, at Ghella being an explorer (also) means constantly searching for new “lands” to be explored and understood. This is what Adolfo chose to do when he landed in the Americas, precisely at the time of the company’s greatest international expansion.

In 1924 Adolfo Ghella was forced to start over for the third time. He had lost everything during the Bolshevik Revolution. Everything but his technical experience and extraordinary determination. In fact, upon returning to Italy, between 1924 and 1934 he completed numerous projects of high-end engineering. He built projects that now form the base of the railway network linking the cities of Southern Italy. He participated in, and won, the tender for a tunnel in the region of Abruzzo, for the Sagittario hydroelectric plant. Between 1927 and 1933 he was awarded various sections of rail lines built for the Ferrovie Calabro-Lucane. In 1934 he moved to Rome and, the same year, was awarded other rail and road works in Italy. Between 1930 and 1940 he built 130 km of railway lines in Southern Italy for the Ferrovie dello Stato. Every one of his jobs concluded successfully.

The fact that Ghella is a solid company today is due precisely to the fact that the lesson of its founders is deeply ingrained in its entrepreneurial spirit: consistently doing one’s best, without fear of failure and, above all, learning from difficult situations.

In Rome, the società Adolfo Ghella e Figli was assigned the construction of the most difficult part of the city’s subway: the section between Via Cavour, San Pietro in Vincoli and the Colosseum. A true masterpiece of audacity, tenacity, and skill. Inaugurated to serve the Esposizione Universale, it was suspended in 1940 by the outbreak of the Second World War. Its tunnels were converted into air raid shelters for up to 50,000 people. Between 1939 and 1940 Adolfo built fortifications along the French border. From 1942 to 1944 he built the penstock for the hydroelectric plant at Bressanone. The year 1944 saw the arrival of Giandomenico Ghella, Giovanni’s first born. His birth marked the beginning of the fourth generation of Ghellas in the world of construction. He is currently President of the Gruppo Ghella S.p.A. In 1945, after years of suspension, work restarted across Italy. Adolfo Ghella became known as the “tunnelling genius” after half a century of uninterrupted work.

Earning a nickname signifies having built a solid and shared reputation. Ghella’s reputation, now as then, is founded not only on punctuality, reliability, and competence, but also on the special ability to confront, and overcome, the most complex challenges.

Between 1954 and 1958 Ghella was at work in Canada, building the wharfs at Port-Cartier harbor and works to improve the navigability of the St. Lawrence River. These Canadian projects were directed by Giovanni Ghella. They were built by CANIT CONSTRUCTION, controlled by Ghella and its partner ing. Salvatore Randaccio, as listed in the Giornale di Sicilia in an article published on May 3, 1958: “Seaway, la più grande via d’acqua” (Seaway, the Largest Waterway). The work consisted in the realization of two locks at Beauharnois. Adolfo Ghella died on May 1, 1955, fully aware of having transferred his passion for work to future generations. In 1957, a 13-year-old Giandomenico Ghella visited his father Giovanni on the site of the Canadian jobs to build the Seaway’s two locks. This was the same year of the construction, by Icos (an American company of the Gruppo Ghella) of the foundations of the World Trade Center in New York. Back in Italy, between 1962 and 1966, Ghella was involved in the construction of a dam on the Cixerri River, in Sardinia.

This was the high point for the family company, but also the beginning of its most difficult period. It would take all the know-how and passion of the earliest days to start over once again. 

The 1970s saw a new partner for Ghella: Domenico Nigro, highly trusted by Giovanni Ghella and with a vast wealth of experience. It was a partnership that functioned immediately. Among many works, the construction in Rome of the tunnels linking Piazza di Spagna with the Villa Borghese parking structure are certainly among the most recognizable. However, above all for the fourth generation the time had come to try their hand abroad, as tradition would have it. In 1977 the company acquired its first job in Venezuela, the Tachira regional aqueduct built for INOS (Instituto Naciónal de Obras Sanitarias). In 1979, in Caracas, works began on Line 1 of the city’s subway. Giandomenico’s son Lorenzo Ghella was born in 1980. His arrival marked the start of the fifth generation of highly specialized tunneling experts. Today Lorenzo is Vice President of the Group. The company boasts many works realized in parallel in Italy and Venezuela.

Thanks to these farsighted investments in technological advancement Ghella has remained a pioneer in mechanical tunneling. While a General Contractor by definition, we are miners by passion.

In 2005, almost 150 years after the first work completed by the company’s progenitor Domenico, Ghella returned to France to make an important contribution to the high-speed rail line between Turin and Lyon. In 2007, in Italy, Ghella realized a section of Turin’s Line 1 subway, the country’s first automated subway. Ghella’s next job was the new Line 5 subway in Milan. In Venezuela the company was involved in the construction of the Line 2 subway in Valencia. In 2008 Ghella received its first commission in Argentina. In Buenos Aires the company was involved in the important Maldonado project: 14 km of tunnels. Also in 2008 Ghella worked in Brazil for the first time, building an important tunnel as part of a 5 km-long methane pipeline. This marked the beginnings of a new business adventure intent on expanding into the field of renewable energies. Italy was the perfect country in which to invest in the realization and management of photovoltaic farms. Ghella began building some 25 fields in Central and South America.   

By betting on renewable energies, and in particular photovoltaics, Ghella moved away from its core business, while remaining faithful to its vision: leaving a better world for future generations.

In 2015, Ghella returns to Brazil to create Line 2 of the São Paolo metro.

The company reinforces its presence in Argentina with work involving the construction of drainage tunnels for the waters of the Riachuelo River in Buenos Aires, and with 40km of tunnels below the current Sarmiento railway: a mammoth task.

Norway is a promising new market. This time the challenge lies in managing 4 TBMs simultaneously during an excavation that spans 40km. It is the most important railway construction ever to be built in the country.

In Vietnam, in the capital of Hanoi, their work is under way to build a new metro line: Line 3.

In Costa Rica, a hydroelectric power plant has been built that will bring light to more than twenty-three thousand families.

Being awarded the contract for the new Sydney metro in Australia only goes to confirm the quality of the Ghella brand. The construction sees the operation of 5 TBMs under what is one of the world's most prestigious bays.

In 2016, the company is awarded the contract to build the Brenner Base Tunnels in Italy totalling 60Km via the use of 3 TBMs.

In the United Arab Emirates Ghella is exporting its experience in the field of energy conservation gained here in Italy, creating a 16km2 photovoltaic plant aimed at energy independence for Dubai’s Expo 2020.

The future is yet to be written.