Trento, an exhibition for the first 50 years of the A22
“A journey within a journey”. This could be the right subtitle to describe the exhibition “La Via del Brennero. The journey from Central Europe to the Mediterranean”, promoted by Autostrada del Brennero with the Trentino Historical Museum Foundation on the occasion of the 50 years of service of the A22, which began on 11 April. The history of the A22, whose first stone was laid in 1964 thanks to the stubbornness of the local authorities of the territories crossed in the face of the refusal of the central government, is in fact only one of the stages of the exhibition itinerary, which unfolds in a highly symbolic place: the White Tunnel is a disused road tunnel built by Autobrennero in Piedicastello (Trento), also inaugurated in 1974 and transformed into an exhibition space in 2008.
From a diachronic perspective, the exhibition allows us to understand how the large infrastructure has represented a real engine of growth for the territories crossed. Fifty years after those events – the last stretch of the A22 opened to traffic on 11 April 1974 – today 70 million vehicles pass through the Brennero-Modena route every year. The history of the A22, which connected Northern and Southern Europe with a rapid and safe corridor, therefore represents a significant junction in a thousand-year journey, which saw the Brenner pass as a crucial and strategic place for numerous peoples, from the Etruscans to the Romans until the Middle Ages, when the Alps experienced one of the seasons of greatest socio-economic ferment. And it doesn’t end here. In the four macro-sections into which the exhibition is divided – “Infrastructure”, “Viability”, “Society” and “Green Corridor” – the past and the present find a place alongside the future and the challenging projects through which the Company aims to transform the A22 in Europe’s first Green Corridor.
While the panels describe the advanced maintenance techniques and cutting-edge engineering solutions adopted over time, some examples of core drilling or the glass vases with saline melts project the visitor onto the street. You can rest your gaze on some special viewers and experience a virtual tour of the CAU, A22 User Assistance Centre. Or raise it over the large spaces designed by the vault of the gallery, which host 4 large mirrored images of the A22: the initial effect of amazement gradually gives way to reflection. The mirror is the tool that accompanies an anniversary, which thus becomes a moment to stop and reflect on how far we have come and how much determination there still is to trace and travel. Finally, an LED prism spells out the three trajectories of the future: ecological transition, digitalisation and intermodality are in fact the pillars around which the transformation of the Brenner axis into Europe’s first Green Corridor revolves. Walking through the installation, you can see first-hand how hydrogen, electric, photovoltaic, connected driving or strengthening of the rail are not simply potentialities but key words of projects already in place. The numbers speak clearly: of the eight new green hydrogen production and/or distribution centers that Autobrennero has decided to build, four distribution centers (for which the Company has also been awarded Pnrr funds) already have an executive project and will see the light within 2026. But the 68 Road site Units with which the A22 is equipped also reveal the level of absolute cutting-edge in the development of C-ITS technologies, as do the almost 20 thousand trains moved every year by the Autobrennero Group, the second cross-border railway player in the sector Italian goods, tell the story of the drive towards truly integrated mobility.
The installation, in collaboration with the Ing. Foundation. Lino Gentilini, will be open to visitors until February 2025.
