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The Centro Direzionale The new Naples Civic
Center, the Centro Direzionale, is visible from
almost any point in Naples or from the bay. Depending on
who is doing the talking, you will hear various
descriptions: a futuristic satellite city of gleaming
towers; a white elephant; a sore thumb. It is—again,
depending on the source—just what the city needs, or
else an unacceptable break with the urban history of the
city.
Thus we come to the 1964 plan to
create a new Civic Center in a relatively undeveloped
part of town, the east. This was to be the first effort
in Naples at true skyscraper technology. The Centro
Direzionale follows the 1982 design of prominent
Japanese architect, Kenzo Tange, whose work includes the
urban plan for Tokyo in 1960, the design for the grounds
of the Tokyo Olympics of 1964, and, in Italy, the
designs for the Bologne Civic Center and Fair Grounds in
1975.
One interesting plan that fell
through was the idea of the local NATO headquarters,
AFSOUTH (Allied Forces Southern Europe—currently in
Bagnoli, on the far western side of Naples) to move to
the new Centro Direzionale. The plans were
finished and the professional video presentation looked
good. Then there was underworld- connected arson against
one of the buildings in the Center, and some member
nations of NATO simply said, "Look, the mob is trying to
burn it down, and it's next to a prison. We are not moving our
troops and their families in there." (AFSOUTH, thus,
changed its mind and has recently broken ground on a new
headquarters so far out of town in the other direction
that they may have to change the name to AFNORTHWEST
PASSAGE.) (update 2010: That is now moot since AFSOUTH
now officially calls itself JFC. No, not the guys that
make electronics; that would be JVC. This one stands for
Joint Forces Command.) The layout of the Centro Direzionale is impressive. There are 18 "islands" of buildings, with high-rises up to 100 meters. There are office buildings as well as residential flats. It is, essentially, a small city: a pedestrian zone at ground level with shops, restaurants and hotels that are easily accessible. There is a mammoth underground parking facility with escalators running up right into the middle of the pedestrian concourse, an area adorned with fountains, benches, greenery and even a church (photo, top). The Centro Direzionale will eventually have its own underground train station; construction of the new metropolitana line is inching its way (and if I could say "millimetering," believe me, I would) in that direction. All in all, the main problem is one
of perception. In spite of the modern trend towards
supermarkets, malls, and all–in–one shopping, most
Neapolitans still live with the idea of the local
neighborhood. They do not willingly go out of town to do
their business and do not easily accept the idea of a
new, built "neighborhood." That is something that grows
over time; you don't just build it. |
Naples
has a long history of episodes of explosive urban
development. The Spanish were responsible for the first
such episode in modern times when they broke down the
old city walls and built modern (for the 1600s) blocks
of buildings, creating what today is still called 
The Centro Direzionale is more than
one square kilometer set in the Poggioreale section of
the city near the central train station. That part of
Naples is, bluntly, the worst part of town; the Center,
itself, is right next door to the large Poggioreale
prison, an institution built almost a century ago for
1100 inmates but today holding twice that number. The
location, thus, presents some problems with the over-all
perception of the Civic Center, quite apart from
aesthetic considerations of architecture. Occupancy, at
least so far, is much lower than what one might expect
for a plan that called for the displacement, sooner or
later, of municipal office space from their current
locations in the traditional center of town