Piano, a senator for life, has chosen Naples for his actions of “mending the suburbs” with “the main aim – he says – of transmitting values ​​to young people, giving them the opportunity to sow on a specific theme that closely concerns them , linked to their personal topographies ». The place was identified in concert between the Foundation of the San Gennaro Community eil DiARC Department of Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II, with the support of the mayor of Naples Manfredi and the councilor Lieto. A place in the innermost part of the Rione Sanità, a “periphery of the periphery” in the historic center of the city. It is an area of ​​about 300 square meters which involves over the entrance to the Fontanelle, the churchyard of the Parish of Maria Santissima del Carmine and a small garden made available by private individuals to the public.

The idea consists in daring dignity at the entrance to the ossuary, now covered by a sheet metal roof, and in connecting the churchyard with the two contiguous areas, the entrance to the Fontanelle cemetery and the green area.. “We would like to create a square for the use of both residents and tourists, illuminated and equipped with spaces in which to stop and entertain,” he says Nicola Flora teacher of Architecture of Naples. The place will thus become a square, according to the request made by Renzo Piano to the teachers of Architecture, Flora and Daniela Buonannotutor of the four young Neapolitan architects (Marino Amodio, Giuseppe De Pascale, Orazio Nicodemo and Davide Savoia), recent graduates, whose scholarship is supported by the senator for life.

“To complete and to give a physical link between the current Metro exit of Mater Dei, the exit to the Rione Sanità and this new square – adds Flora – four small rest areas will also be created with seats, trees and hedges in continuity with the strategy that our DiARC group, together with the San Gennaro Community Foundation, has been implemented since 2016 in a series of places such as piazza Largo Vita and piazzetta San Severo in Capodimonte ».

The “mending works”, as Renzo Piano defines them, will be planned through a path of civic participation that in Naples sees the decisive support of the San Gennaro Community Foundation as well as the Community architect, Francesca Iarrusso, which, thanks also to the support of the Foundation with the South, will support the G124 Naples group. The project actions, financially supported by private sponsors, will be carried out in less than two years and the projects will be presented in October at the Architecture Biennale of Pisa. The first meeting with the residents and the various Health Associations is scheduled for May 29 in the church Maria Santissima del Carmine.

With this intervention “they will be presented to the citizens – specifies don Antonio Loffredoparish priest of the Rione Sanità – also other projects in the district, such as the new underground exit of Materdei alla Sanità, the CIS project for the arrangement of pedestrian and non-pedestrian areas, the new system of lifts that will connect the basilica del Buon Consiglio to Capodimonte with the downstream part adhering to the church of San Gennaro extra moenia. These actions aim to regenerate the ancient Greek-Roman city of Naples by intervening in particular on the ancient area outside the walls of the Rione Sanità, a district that for over two centuries has been waiting for redemption actions that free it from the isolation to which the construction of the Sanità bridge by Joachim Murat condemned him. “

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