Palazzo degli Uffici

By Gemma Belli

The only work by Luigi Moretti (1906-1973) in Naples, the building in via Marina (1969-1972) is also one of the last projects carried out by the talented Roman architect. On this occasion, the architect was consulted to develop a variant for the reconstruction plan of via Marittima, an area excluded from the land use plan by Luigi Cosenza, which had been approved in 1946 but effectively abandoned in October 1952 after various setbacks. Along the seafront, Moretti’s design envisages the repetition, with slight variations, of a single type twelve times, from the corner with via Alcide De Gasperi to the intersection with via Nuova Marina. The building is a tapered lamellar structure, ascending and offset from a support plate [Central State Archive (ACS), Moretti fund, 70/276]. As the plan was progressively downsized, the project was gradually reduced to the design of two contiguous units and eventually to a single building, intended to house the Institute for the Economic Development of Southern Italy (Isveimer). The institute was primarily established to provide subsidised financing for either the creation of new industrial facilities or the expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises in mainland Southern Italy. In 1997, as the Institute had been liquidated since the previous year, the building was acquired by the Federico II University and repurposed as offices. The building is structured as a compact parallelepiped facing via Marina, with a total height of nine floors and two lower sections consisting of two levels each, which create an open courtyard with vehicular access near the orthogonal via Giulio Cesare Cortese. Following a design solution that is reminiscent of Moretti's approach in Rome – with the twin buildings at EUR or the office complex at Piazzale Flaminio – the tower features façades clad in aluminium panels which, originally intended to be bronzed, are grooved by the protruding pillars extending beyond the façade line, as well as the painted enamel steel ribs in red. At the top, a band with no openings marks the transition between architecture and sky, invoking the Michelangelesque ‘weight upward’ principle which was dear to the architect. However, the most Michelangelesque element is the raw concrete canopy (unfortunately, now inexplicably plastered and smoothed), spanning two levels (ground level and one above), which connects the different volumes. This architectural feature is striking, with tree-like columns supporting, and sometimes intersecting, a double order of projecting plastic canopies of varying dimensions. The colonnade thus intertwines the stereometric volumes at street level, creating a mediating space between the public exterior and the building courtyard, as well as serving as a sculptural form that disrupts the rational ‘repetition’ of the building layout, providing a different tactile perception and imparting a ‘dramatic’ quality to the composition. The parallelepiped volumes, with their smooth skin, exemplify the non-baroque ensembles of Moretti’s poetic approach, accessible from a distance in an ‘endless repetition from a Chinese manuscript or a Greek colonnade […] an endless row of vertical elements that at some point you either get tired of seeing or understand them sufficiently to no longer waste time looking at them’ (Moretti 1969). On the other hand, the canopy embodies the richness and complexity of elements condensed within the fabric of the structure, characteristics typically associated with the baroque ensembles. The full comprehension of such complex compositions often requires subsequent learning, with extended and intensified intellectual engagement. Once again, it becomes evident that the architect does not conceive form in isolation but always in relation to perception, thus envisioning the architectural project as a prefiguration of the observer’s perceptual sensations.

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