In 2004, the City of Naples commissioned several internationally renowned architects, including Álvaro Siza, Dominique Perrault, Oscar Tusquets, Massimiliano Fuksas and Karim Rashid, to design stations for the city’s new metropolitan line. Known as the ‘Triple A’ metro line and following the leitmotif “art, architecture and archaeology”, the interventions aimed to give a highly recognisable identity to previously homogeneous urban settings.
The new Centro Direzionale subway and train station sought to establish new relationships between the city’s natural volcanic ground and the artificial site originally designed in the 1970s by Kenzo Tange. Conceived as a technologically advanced centre organised across multiple traffic levels and separated from the historic urban fabric, the district gradually became isolated and difficult for citizens to appropriate, eventually turning into an unsafe environment.
One of the project’s key decisions was the use of wood as the main material, creating an organic contrast with the 1970s surroundings and recalling older areas of Naples. Emerging from below as a vaulted timber structure, it transforms the Centro Direzionale into a flowing and organic piazza, recreating the sensation of “walking in the woods” within an office district. With its underground link to the city, the station transforms the area’s artificial surface into a complex topography with multiple pedestrian levels and a wooden roof structure. Built above existing train lines, the station replaces an earlier entrance structure that functioned largely as a cover for the stairs leading to the platforms.
Wood, a lightweight material, integrates effectively with the pre-existing structures. The original concrete columns are reused as concrete bases, with new timber columns inserted and anchored through steel bases. The width of the tracks below is reflected in the undulating vaulted roof, referencing classic train stations. The resulting public spaces allow a physical encounter with the city’s present and past while tracing the topographical movements and dynamics of the local population, combining the renaturalisation of public space with urban reuse.
In line with the metropolitan line’s motto, the station is not only an architectural intervention but also a space for art linked to the city’s archaeological heritage. Although it is not located directly above archaeological remains, the project respects the pre-existence and introduces subtle references to the past through an almost narrative dimension. Interior chromatic strategies evoke Pompeian frescoes, and at train level, figures appear through colour as an ironic nod to Neapolitan archaeology. When you arrive by train, Pompeii, with red and yellow tones, appears in front of the traveller.
The roof also anticipates an artistic intervention, still to happen, by Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada, inspired by Naples’ classical past, where a portrait of Virgilio creates a link with the tradition of madonnari (street paintings). The Naples metro stations are part of a broader infrastructural vision that enables a new form of movement for the citizens of Naples, unfolding largely below ground. What once seemed impossible, due to the city’s extraordinarily rich archaeological substratum, has instead become an opportunity. By integrating archaeological discoveries directly into the stations, these spaces have been transformed into a sequence of underground museums. This approach introduces a new paradigm, where the station is no longer merely a functional piece of infrastructure, but an experience in itself.
Each station, and in particular the one at Centro Direzionale, becomes a catalyst for the transformation of public space. It generates new patterns of movement and encourages new ways of inhabiting the surrounding areas. The station is not an isolated object, but part of a wider urban choreography. At Centro Direzionale, the project plays a particularly strategic role. The station activates the site by opening connections in four directions, while also linking to the future extension of the district, capable of triggering a broader transformation in mobility and redefining the role of public space within the area.
Team:
Architect: Benedetta Tagliabue - Miralles Tagliabue EMBT
Project Director: Joan Callís
Design Team Leader: Valentina Nicol Noris
EMBT Team: Eugenio Cirulli, Marco Orecchia, Gabriela Degetau, Sofia Barberena, Andrea Morandi, Alessandra Deidda, Cecilia Bertozzi, Mirko Silvestri, Joanna Karatzas, Gabriele Rotelli, Guile Amadeu, Lucien Puech,Valeria Alfonsi, Michela Cicuto, Francesca Martinelli, Guido Bigolin, Maira Carillo, Jan Kokol, Andrè Temporelli, Ludwig Godefroy, Shavleg Chichishvili, Gordon Tannhausen, Marco Orecchia, Giulia Viola, Federico Volpi, Teymour Benet, Luis Angello Coarite Asencio, Antonio Rusconi, Davide Mergoni, Francesco Rota, Gregorius Budhijanto, Juan Manuel Peña Sanz, Marco dal Fabbro, Marina Pérez Primo, Raphael Teixeira Libonati, Stefano Spotti, Andrea Morandi, Silvia Sonnati, Carlo Consalvo, Philip Lemanski, Marianna Mincarelli.
Structural Engineer:MC2, Julio Martínez Calzón.
Client: Metropolitana di Napoli
Photos: Paolo Fassoli, Roland Halbe
