Antonio Bardella is the Italian founder of Bardella SA Mechanical Industries, in 1911. The company boosted the history of Brazilian industry.
It all started when the Italian immigrant Antônio Bardella arrived in Brazil from the region of Veneto, and on Italy, at the age of six, at the end of the 19th century, in the wave of immigration that brought thousands of Italians to the country in that same period.
The story goes that, even though he was very young, Bardella was already blacksmith's apprentice na Italy, a profession that he continued in Brazil, where the dream of a better life since he was a child made him learn the trade very quickly.
In 1911, in the city of São Paulo, Antônio Bardella founded the Bardella Offices, in the neighborhood of Barra Funda. In the beginning, the enterprise was focused on manufacturing grids to stoves, windows e gardens.
Wife's drawings
At that time, the young Italian, aged 28, had his wife as an important ally Josephine, who already thought beyond his time and taught cutting and sewing at a girls' school in Brás neighborhood, in the capital of São Paulo.
In her free time, Josefina helped her husband Antônio create new designs for garden trellises, which Antônio skillfully transformed into exclusive iron pieces, bringing innovation for the market.
With a lot of work and creativity, Bardella began to grow and soon its history became intertwined with the trajectory of country growth. In 1907, when the first Brazilian industrial census showed only 3 thousand industries in Brazil, the economy was dominated by sugar mills, cotton mills, foundries and sawmills.
Within that context, Bardella began to contribute to the supply of machines and equipment for all these sectors. The First World War, in 1914, helped in the growth of Brazilian industry, as the difficulty of importing forced the local production of consumer goods.
Bardella begins to expand
As a result, in 1920, the second industrial census showed 12 thousand industries in the country, a fourfold increase in the previous number. The small workshop of Bardella, which in 1916 had established a foundry, in 1927 delivered the first Brazilian crane, built for use in the company's own industrial facilities.
From the 1930s onwards, with the industrialization policy of the government of then president Getúlio Vargas, Bardella found itself once again challenged to keep up with the country development.
It is worth remembering that, in that period, the National Petroleum Council (1938), the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (1941), the Vale do Rio Doce Company (1943) and the São Francisco Hydroelectric Company (1945).
Thus, Bardella began supplying cranes, machines and equipment to all new sectors of the economy: steel, metallurgy, mining and energy.
An important characteristic of the time was that most companies were just equipment assemblers. As a visionary that he was, Antônio Bardella chose to develop and acquire technology in partnership with foreign companies.
Industry diversification
As soon as it started Second World War, his strategy proved to be correct. Once again, Brazil was unable to import parts and equipment that it needed for its growth. As a result, the importance of a national industry technologically independent in the capital goods sector.
In 1942, the company went public and began to have shares traded on the Brazilian Stock Exchange. At the same time, the corporate name changed to Bardella SA Mechanical Industries.
From 1950 until the end of the 20th century, amidst an enormous diversification of Brazilian industry, driven by several government plans, Bardella consolidated its position as a leader in the supply of equipment for the metallurgy, steel, energy, mining and port industrial sectors.
This leadership was achieved through the supply of equipment using its own technology or supported by agreements with world-renowned foreign companies, such as Voith, Baby suits, Student, Mitsubishi, Sorefame, Alstom, Siemens, Rolls Royce e GE, among others.
Along this path, the company achieved important milestones, such as the expansion of its facilities to the city of Guarulhos, in 1970, bringing jobs and income to the region.
Important partnerships
Also in the 1970s, the company entered into a partnership with the Portuguese group Sorefame, a specialist in engineering and manufacturing equipment for hydroelectric plants, and built a specialized plant in the city of Sorocaba, interior of São Paulo. At the same time, in 1974, Bardella acquired a shareholding in Schuler Presses, traditional manufacturer of presses for the global market.
The following year, the Brazilian government began construction of the Itaipú hydroelectric plant, which enabled the delivery, in 1980, of the largest crane in the world, with a capacity of 1.000 tons, with engineering and manufacturing by Bardella.
With a new cycle of growth in Brazil that began in the 1990s, Brazilian industry began to expand in several sectors, such as steel and mining, to meet the demands of China, and the oil and gas sectors, due to the greater demand for energy in Brazil.
In 2001, Bardella was associated with The Timken Company, a bearing manufacturing company. In 2003, the manufacture of oil and gas equipment began. In 2007, it was signed, together with the Siderúrgica do Atlântico, a contract for the supply of overhead cranes.
Two years later, in 2009, a contract was signed by Bardella to supply hydromechanics for the hydroelectric plants of St. Anthony e Jirau.
Antônio Bardella's dream
Bardella SA Indústrias Mecânicas has recently been experiencing financial difficulties, as have many Brazilian industries, but continues to operate in the production of capital goods, manufacturing equipment and providing boilermaking, school assembly and machining services. It is present in the state of São Paulo, where it has industrial plants in the cities of Sorocaba e Guarulhos.
As the company operates mainly in the production of capital goods, the buyers who normally request Bardella's services are from the construction sector. steel and aluminum, cargo handling, mining and power plants.
In addition, the company also provides services to the oil and gas industries, manufacturing drawn and rolled bars. Still as part of its activities, Bardella is the controller of Barefame Industrial Installations, Besides the Energo Agro Industrial Ltda.
Bardella also controls, on a majority basis, Bardella Administração de Bens e Empresas and Corretora de Seguros. Furthermore, the company has stakes in Planihold SA, Indústria Metalúrgica e Mecânica da Amazônia (IMMA) and Durafeno.
Today the company is managed by Claudio Bardella, grandson of Antônio Bardella, that immigrant who arrived in Brazil as a boy, with blacksmith skills and the dream of conquering a decent work and start a family in their new country called Brazil.
By Roberto Schiavon/Italianism
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