area 113 | benedetta tagliabue embt

architect: Benedetta Tagliabue embt (Miralles Tagliabue EMBT)

location: Napoli, Italy

year: 2005

The project of the new underground station ‘Centro Direzionale’ in Naples is located in the heart of the complex of towers and platforms designed by Kenzo Tange in the 1970s. The area is dominated by a very rigid system of orthogonal lines, which does not in any way reflect or communicate with the adjacent part of town. The existing public spaces appear hard and artificial, and the colour green has more of a decorative nature than an environmental one. Our project wants to break this rigidity, creating softer connections between the old part of town, the pedestrian platform of the CDN and the new station, and allowing the flow of people to generate a more sustainable, more human-scale public space.
The station’s great roof creates shaded resting areas at the level of the square, a square which is presently hardly usable during the hot spring and summer days of Naples, as it is completely exposed to the sun. Green areas are an important element of the project, and they are expressed in a continuous system along the pathway pedestrians follow from the city to the inside of the station. On a perceptive level, this green also softens the large artificial surfaces of the Centro Direzionale. The used materials derive from Neapolitan tradition: Volcanic stone is used for the pavement and ceramic for the roof finish. Both are typical local materials.