GENEVA, MAY 19 – The Palais des Nations will soon get another Italian touch: by 2023 all the elevators of the headquarters of the UN in Geneva will have the technology and reliability of the Como-based company Maspero Elevatori.
The order, amounting to more than 2.8 million euros, is part of the renovation of the complex, entrusted to the Webuild-CMB-Italiana Costruzioni joint venture. The endeavour includes the renovation of the historical buildings, with particular attention to the protection of the historical heritage of the Palais des Nations, and all aspects relating to work safety and accessibility.
“We are very happy to have been involved in this prestigious and articulated restructuring as it recognizes our competence in the construction of innovative systems, with an accurate design and technologically advanced, highly reliable but also attentive to sustainability and the protection of historical heritage”, commented Andrea Maspero, CEO of Maspero Elevatori. “We have already collaborated with CMB in other international projects and we have enthusiastically accepted this new opportunity. The most demanding challenge will be to maintain the functionality of the offices during all phases of the restructuring that we will certainly be able to face thanks to a great teamwork with all the players involved.
Based in Appiano Gentile, Maspero manufactures high-tech lifts which make it possible for people to effortlessly ascend iconic sites such as the Acropolis in Athens, the Penang Temple in Malaysia, the Bard Fortress in Aosta or the Business Park in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A custom-made, automatic, hydraulic lift was recently installed in the Emergency paediatric surgery centre in Uganda, designed by Renzo Piano and inaugurated last April. Work is scheduled to start in October in Geneva, the first step being the modernization of 25 lifts, replacing doors and gears, installing new generation electrical panels, with the aim to maximize safety and energy efficiency. Maspero Elevatori’s team of engineers and technicians will also design of 11 new vertical lifts, whose construction will start next year and will be installed by the end of 2023.
All lifts will be equipped with a monitoring service: the data of each system will be collected in a control-room that will allow the supervision, monitoring and management of the accesses and movement of each lift to ensure maximum safety. Thanks to an advanced cloud-based software and a series of sensors positioned on all the lifts, it will be possible to monitor the correct functioning of all the units, allowing the detection and automatic identification of faults, as well as intervening on the functions, activating and deactivating access to floors if necessary.
After the New York Headquarters, the Palais des Nations in Geneva is the United Nations’ most important international operations centre. Built between 1929 and 1936, it is one of the busiest diplomatic centers in the world, with 34 conference rooms, hosting around 12,000 meetings each year with over 75,000 delegates and 100,000 visitors. With a surface area of around 100,000 square metres, the offices are located within 46 hectares of Ariana Park, and overlook the Swiss shore of Lake Geneva. (@OnuItalia)