Complex of Scampia

by Alessandro Castagnaro

Since the 1990s, the Scampia neighbourhood on the northern outskirts of the city of Naples has acquired considerable notoriety nationally, and in some cases even internationally, because in this very place, between 1962 and 1975, the "infamous" Vele (Sail-shaped apartment blocks) were built. These buildings made up a vast residential complex promoted by Law 167, 1962 and designed by the architect Franz Di Salvo who is considered by critics and contemporary historiography to be one of the most innovative on the Neapolitan scene in the time span between post-World War II and 1977, the date of his untimely death. Originally comprising of 7 buildings on a 115-hectare site, the complex was the result of a qualitative architectural experimentation, albeit with some errors in design and execution. At a later stage, it was affected even more negatively by political and social constraints mostly linked to the housing crisis following the earthquakes of the 1980s and was penalised by the absence of any form of infrastructure. In a short period, Scampia and the Vele became the setting par excellence for filmography and literature dealing with crime, and social and environmental degradation by negatively, and sometimes groundlessly, marking the entire neighbourhood, thereby sealing its fate that was already looming. The first of the Vele was pulled down in 1997 and others followed suit until 2020.

Precisely on the site where the first Vela was demolished, now stands the university hub designed by the studio of the renowned Novara architect Vittorio Gregotti (1927 - 2020), among the most successful architects on the international scene at the time, and also a pupil of E.N. Rogers who is known for his search for dialogue between geography and architectural marks in the recovery of formal and technical values of traditions predating the Modern Movement. A founder of the Gregotti associati international studio in 1974, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Milan Triennale in 2012, and in 2020 was awarded the Biennale Special Golden Lion.

Timing plays a key role in the current understanding of the project commissioned by the government at the beginning of the third millennium by architect Gregotti to house the headquarters of the Civil Defense, the offices of the municipality, the prefecture and the laboratories of the Vesuvius Observatory. In short, it acts as a government garrison to protect the territory.

In May 2003 the project was consigned by Gregotti to the then Mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, who was to proceed with a tender for the works, to be completed in two years. His statement of intent to the local press read, "This is an important sign for the city and the inhabitants of Scampìa, which will no longer be considered a ghetto, [... ... ] the administration presents the final project of a facility that will serve to regenerate the neighbourhood and upgrade it." After a long, articulated and cumbersome bureaucratic process, the complex was entrusted to Federico II University and was inaugurated on October 17, 2022.

The rationale for the new use was rightly aimed at a significant urban regeneration project, which does not call for military-style garrisons but rather places of culture, open to the area. It is necessary to reiterate that it was built for another use and another client and thus, despite the undoubted qualities of the work, there is clearly a vulnerability. Gregotti designed an introverted work, a kind of panoptic tower, inspired by the models of the ancient tolos, still present today in Mycenaean civilizations, which are depicted as a circular, truncated-cone construction, consisting of rings of projecting stone blocks forming a pseudo-dome. In fact, its layout is characterized by an enclosed, turreted circular structure without large openings to the outside; a space that is spread over 7 levels over basement, clad in a bricked finish with slotted windows with rigid alignments and a crown and basement marked by small square openings, in line with the author's characteristic design approach.

While the surrounding exterior space, albeit accompanied by parking lots and open spaces, appears to be a structure closed to the territory, an opposite sign can be found in the interior marked by maximum brightness, provided by a large central void with a transparent roof supported by a high-tech exposed steel structure, with an overhead opening featuring a symbolic olive tree. All rooms are double facing: opening towards the central courtyard and to the outside. There is a large 500-plus-seat lecture hall in the basement that is also characterized by a semicircular surface, and 33 classrooms that can accommodate a total of 2,660 students at full capacity.

Yet, despite today's most advanced studies, which also take into account findings from the field of neuroscience, envisage places of study and research with morphologies open to the territory, and spaces with a democratic character, especially if their local social community has been the victim of deprivation and omissions of various kinds for years, the architect-designer has in this case adopted an opposite approach. Despite this, the strength and value of an ancient university seems clear through a desire for social redemption through culture, teaching for the younger generations, research and the "third mission" as this new venue has already sent strong signals contributing to a longed-for regeneration process.

From the volume "Passeggiando per la Federico II" (second updated edition) <strong>edited by Alessandro Castagnaro - photographs by Roberto Fellicò - FedOAPress</strong>