University Complex in San Giovanni a Teduccio

by Alessandro Castagnaro

San Giovanni a Teduccio was a separate town until 1925, when a number of municipalities in the urban belt bordering the city were incorporated into the Naples jurisdiction.
Starting in the 19th century, it was first a seaside resort, then underwent an abrupt transformation into a state-of-the-art industrial centre.
In fact, since 1820, San Giovanni a Teduccio experienced a century of development and innovation.
In 1839 a railway station was opened following the completion of the Naples-Portici line - the first Italian railway.
The station, which is still present today on the central avenue, was used by bathers in search of beaches with clean waters, along a coastline and hinterland still dotted with windmills for processing grain.
Since 1840, with the establishment of the Pietrarsa workshops, an industry-based economy began to flourish, which – while on one hand contributed to overshadowing the charming image of a holiday destination – on the other hand also provided a significant boost to employment.
This trend increased since 1872 with the construction of the Corradini plant, later known as Cirio-Corradini.
However, as the factory closed down in the second half of the 20th century and the industrial disinvestment was completed, the entire area of San Giovanni a Teduccio plunged into a state of territorial neglect and environmental degradation, leading to complex social issues, such as high unemployment and crime rates, thus turning from productive hub into a deteriorated periphery.
This is why the need arose, within the context of the University of Naples Federico II since the late 1990s, to relieve the congestion of the Fuorigrotta building of the Faculty of Engineering by establishing a new one in the eastern part of the city, which would also accommodate students from the eastern metropolitan area and the province.
Simultaneously, the university aimed – for both political and cultural purposes – to contribute to the urban regeneration of a peripheral area with diverse potential, yet in a state of progressive decline.
To this end, a memorandum of understanding was established on 31 March 1998, jointly signed by the Ministry of University, the Region of Campania, the Municipality of Naples, and the University of Naples Federico II, led by Rector Fulvio Tessitore.
The Ministry and the Region committed to funding the project, while the Municipality ensured the development of the necessary urban planning variant.
For its part, the University committed to purchasing the former Cirio area in via Nicola Protopisani from the bankruptcy trustee.
Once the bureaucratic administrative process was set in motion, the purchase of the entire area was formalized in 2002, and an international competition was initiated to select the designer, which was won by the consortium consisting of Ishimoto Europe, Ishimoto Architectural & Engineering Firm Inc., architect Francesco Scardaccione and Corbellini srl.
The resulting project, later developed under the leadership of Rector Guido Trombetti, had significant social implications and featured a vast open area – a sort of green park incorporated between the major roads connecting San Giovanni a Teduccio, Corso Nicola Protopisani and via Nuova Villa, with an entrance also from via Pietro Signorini.
This area was not designated as restricted to the academic community only, but also open to the public.
The urban layout strongly emphasised the permeability with the surrounding context, which – in contrast to the old Cirio factory, enclosed within a compact perimeter – seamlessly integrated its green areas into the urban context, thus maintaining a dialogue with the pre-existing elements in spite of being an overtly modern complex.
The rationalist architectural design featured multiple buildings along the edge of the extensive plot, distributed within the large green area in which the project designers blended the concept of the Italian piazza with that of the Japanese garden.
This is composed of a series of squares divided into entrance squares, squares facing public streets, and internal campus squares, all characterised by the surrounding architectural volumes and a spacious park courtyard.
The park courtyard features alternating rows of trees of various species – pine trees, olive trees, plane trees, lemon trees – as well as grassy areas and small artificial hills that define different parking areas.
The architectural structures housing university activities, while maintaining a consistent height of four floors each, have different volumes and facade treatments: two of them have a volcanic stone base, while the other two have walls – sometimes punctuated by imposing steel pilotis – made of highly technological large windows that reflect Mount Vesuvius and the surrounding landscape.
The overall project encompasses the development of two hundred thousand cubic meters for classrooms, libraries, laboratories, departmental offices, a conference centre for around eighteen hundred students and two hundred and fifty faculty members, and a large underground floor designated for parking, a teaching centre with over a thousand seats in lecture halls, and the vast suspended auditorium equipped with state-of-the-art technologies.
To date, the complex, closely overseen by Rector Gaetano Manfredi, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, has been partially operational since 2015 and is not yet fully completed, as only the first of the three phases has been finished, the second is in progress, and the third will be tackled later.
The completed section, in addition to hosting educational activities, has also become the home of the Apple Academy, a worldwide excellence, hosting international groups that attract students and researchers from all over the world.
Simultaneously, there has been development and redesign in the transportation system, both rail and road, with a new railway station for rapid connections.
Therefore, this more recent building of Federico II, besides being a complex with multiple architectural qualities, also addresses contemporary environmental concerns, blending built and green spaces.
It also fulfils its original intent as a multicultural and multilingual university campus, characterised by its role as a hub for teaching, research, The National Research Council (CNR), and advanced industrial and entrepreneurial groups, offering significant opportunities for education and employment.
This building is significantly contributing to urban revitalisation, even impacting local tertiary activities in an area that could transition from being peripheral to strategically significant, stimulating the local community towards a strong sense of belonging.
This operation has been highly regarded by the European Commission as a good practice in the utilization of European funds.

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