NAPLES METRO, LINE 1 THE ART STATIONS OF NAPLES METRO ILLUSTRATE HOW AN 1993 year of the inauguration of the first stretch INFRASTRUCTURE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT CAN BECOME 15 stations in function at 2011 THE FULCRUM OF A GREAT OPERATION OF 8 stations of art REQUALIFICATION OF WHOLE DISTRICTS AND A 180 works exposed LABORATORY OF CONTEMPORARY ART. AND, WITH THE 90 artists present INSERTION OF THE LOGES PATHS, ALSO AN EXAMPLE OF 15,5 km length of line in exercise ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN ARCHITECTURAL QUALITY AND 220 daily runs ACCESSIBILITY FOR DISABLED PERSONS 120.000 passengers during the working days 40.000 passengers during the non-working days Contract Architecture (Italy) UNEXPECTED EXAMPLE Foreign visitors, much more if belonging to the Anglo-Saxon culture, have the tendency to be fascinated and amused by the "picturesque" Parthenopean. They admire and are a bit envious of that unrepeatable combination of common vitality and aristocratic courtliness that is one of the most outstanding distinctive features of the atmosphere of Naples. They find so many reasons to fall in love with the city, but often theirs is a love full of exasperated sighs of whom, sometimes, would like to have a lover, maybe a bit less fascinating, but at least a bit calmer and more reliable in the issues of everyday life. It’s difficult to imagine that they write letters to their friends to tell them that the public services of their cities should take example from those of the chief town of the Campania. Yet, this is the “miracle” operated by Naples Metro. Metro that "has something to teach to the responsibles of London transports," wrote Michael Binyon no less than in the "Times", a newspaper that often is the spokesman of the most measured - and at times proud - britannicity. That it's not an ironic wisecrack is clarified a few lines later, by the journalist, when he raises the dose suggesting to the mayor of the British capital and his aldermen "to analyze attentively" the example of Naples "if they want to have some hope to save the fetid and decrepit London subway." The admiration of the reporter is inspired by the technical difficulties, that the constructors of Naples Metro have had to overcome but also, and above all, by the beauty and visibility of the stations, as well as the requalification of whole districts that the jobs of the subway have brought with themselves. FROM THE SUBSOIL TO THE DISTRICTS “A yard of the subway is a presence that for years perturbs the life of the whole area in which it rises," explains Giovanna Torcia, responsible for the public relationships of the Metropolitana di Napoli Spa, the concessionary society of the structures. “Since the beginning we posed ourselves the problem of what to leave once the yard is closed. Especially in areas where the jobs were grafted on to a context characterized by more or less depth Pag. 1/4 degrade, it wasn't thinkable to recreate everything as before. So, beyond what had been done under-earth, the stations of the subway became an important occasion of urban requalification.” Moreover a requalification to the insignia of the most advanced contemporary art, because the stations inserted in the ambitious project Stations of the art were conceived in this way. ART OF THE PRESENT TIME In a Country as Italy, where the incomparable wealth of the historical patrimony often ends up with slowing the innovation down, once decided to give an artistic dimension to the stations, it would have been too easy to look back upon the past and decide to pick up some of the dozens of works from the immense invisible treasure that lies in the undergrounds of our museums. However, - we need to say it with a certain courage - the responsibles of Naples Metro have taken an opposite way. An infrastructure of the importance of a subway cannot prescind from being expression of its own time," continues Giovanna Torcia. “Therefore, the only form of art we could take into consideration was the contemporary art.” Once this fundamental decision was made, the way has been followed with coherence till the end. First of all submitting the artistic coordination of the whole project to a militant art-critic and protagonist of the Italian contemporary art of the caliber of Achille Bonito Oliva. Then making a further footstep to guarantee that the exposed works of art become an integral part of the structure and not an overlap in retrospect, with the risk to appear artificial or however out of place. “They were the same architects that projected the various stations to choose the artists and the works to expose,” clarifies still our interlocutor. “So, everyone did it on the basis of his/her own sensibility and so that the works could be in relationship with the respective project. Not only: since the project of the Stations of the art was born together with the decision to make the yards of the subway an occasion of urban requalification, the art got out of the stations to flow also in the squares and in the surrounding streets, making the areas touched by the subway samples of the most advanced laboratories of contemporary art not only in Italy, but in the whole of Europe.” The relationship with the outside, can go in reverse also. So, there is only a single station, where works of art from the antiquity are exposed: and it couldn’t be otherwise as it is the “Museum” station, at the feet of the National Archaeological Museum. However, also here, together with the casts of works as the Horse Head called "Carafa", the Farnese Hercules and the bronze reproduction of Laocoön, cohabit contemporary works and photos of Mimmo Jodice that give a fully contemporary vision of many ancient works. GENETIC ACCESSIBILITY As the insertion of contemporary art, also the measures to guarantee the accessibility of the stations to the disabled persons - from those categories of disabled persons that are not able to enjoy visual arts, the blinds and the partially sighted persons - are not appositions, but they are born together with the project of the stations. And this is still Giovanna Torcia, who clarifies the underlying philosophy. The subway is in itself, for its own nature, a structure born with the aim of improving the mobility of all the citizens, from those who have more difficulties to move (that's those who have to live with some form of disability). Therefore, this is natural, that the stations are projected from the beginning with all the devices to guarantee total accessibility. One of the most important elements in it are the paths to allow to the blind people to reach the trains easily and in all safety. Paths realized with the Loges system furnished by Mondo through the Deltaceramica of Naples, and that thanks to the possibility of playing with the strong chromatic contrasts given by the use of materials like rubber, in one hand are able to become a valid and useful visual guide for the partially sighted people who preserve a minimum percentage of the functionality of their eyes. On the other hand they are architectural and decorative elements as well, that contribute in a remarkable way to the aspect of the stations, with a coherence that, letting us be pushed by the wind of the art into the gulf of philosophy, we could reach to define a perfect alliance of senses. A path from the sight of the art to the touch of the paths of Loges and vice versa. Pag. 2/4 Pag. 3/4 Pag. 4/4.