Anghel Saligny was a Romanian engineer who designed the Fetești-Cernavodă railway bridge over the Danube, the longest in Europe at the time. He also designed the concrete warehouses in the port of Constanța, one of the first examples of reinforced concrete architecture in Europe.
He was born in Şerbănești, the son of a French educator who emigrated to Moldova. He studied engineering in Germany and contributed to the construction of railways in Saxony. He was a founding member of the Polytechnic Society of Bucharest and Minister of Public Works. He was elected to the Romanian Academy and was its president from 1907 to 1910.
His brother, Alfons Oscar Saligny, was also a chemist and educator who was elected to the Romanian Academy. Saligny was involved in many other projects, such as the first mixed bridges (railway and road) in Romania, the first reinforced concrete silos in the world and a special basin for the export of oil in Constanța.
His most important work was the King Charles I Bridge over the Danube at Cernavodă, which was inaugurated in 1895 and awarded the gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900.
Saligny died in 1925 in Bucharest and was buried in the Bellu cemetery. Many streets, schools and institutions in Romania bear his name, as well as a metro station and a national program of investment in local infrastructure.
Alex Petrescu
4 weeks ago
