The ‘Duomo’ station of Line 1 of the Naples Subway, designed by Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas, was inaugurated on Friday August 6th and is now fully operational.
The new subway station is located in Piazza Nicola Amore, a historic Neapolitan square at the crossroads between Via Duomo and Corso Umberto I, thus becoming the main access point to the historic city centre after the Central Station located in Piazza Garibaldi.
The direct connection to the Duomo and the southern part of the city - with the ancient borough of Mercato and the historic borough of Orefici - will mobilize a significant flow of citizens and tourists.
The collaboration between Metropolitana di Napoli S.p.A. and the Superintendence for Archeological and Architectural Heritage has allowed to enhance, starting from the very design phase, the base of a temple dating back to the 1st century AD, a Flavian-era portico and a gymnasium running track, which were brought to light during the first excavations.
The new Duomo station is part of the larger project of the Naples Underground, a wide-ranging cultural operation involving major names in art and architecture on the international scene.
The project represents an important opportunity both to safeguard and protect the archeological area by ensuring its proper use and fruition, while respecting the daily relationship between architecture and history. The archaeological findings have been a fundamental point during the whole design phase: the temple, found at -1.85 m. depth has been brought up to +4.25 m. height thus creating an evocative museum space overlapped to the underground levels of the station.
A geodesic bubble cover, which will be completed in the coming months, has been designed in order to protect the temple. The steel structure is made up of triangular glass surfaces, which allow for the direct natural lighting of the temple. The transparency of the glass permits a readability and visual continuity from the outside towards the inside, thus giving lightness to the volume, which is placed at the center of the square.
The station is articulated on two levels, allowing users to choose whether to enter the excavation or
perceive its presence while continuing their usual path to the trains.
At the first underground level, conceptually inscribed within the basic ellipse of the cover “bubble”, one can find the temple and the museum space. At the second underground level, the mezzanine floor, the perceptual experience is dedicated to mobility and urban travel. Colors, lighting, geometric textures and mirrored surfaces mark the rhythm of the journey while accompanying the passengers to the train platforms.
The project returns the suggestion of the archaeological discovery in its making, and strongly proposes the idea of the in depth excavation, as if to return the emotion of ‘going underneath’, of penetrating with sinuous and non-geometric paths into the subsoil, looking for ancient findings.
All the elements of the architectural space, including the covering materials - bright scotch steel for the walls and the ceiling, travertine slabs for the floors - generate an ideal scenography, as a backround, for the temple.
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