Salvator Rosa Station
Metro Line 1
Atelier Mendini | 2001
The station, planned by Atelier Mendini and opened to the public in 2001, was brought about through the close collaboration between architects and artists: the works of art, inside the extensive terraced gardens, dialogue with the architectural spaces and testimony of the past. The result, as noted by Alessandro Mendini himself, is a global aesthetic work that profoundly involves the citizen, and turns their daily life into a stage.
The area surrounding the station has benefited from the extensive revitalisation efforts which have returned the remains of a Roman bridge back its past splendour, as well as a graceful neoclassical chapel. It has also underlined the surrounding residential buildings, transforming them into works of art thanks to artist such as Mimmo Rotella, Ernesto Tatafiore, Mimmo Paladino, Renato Barisani e Gianni Pisani.
The different levels of the park are also interconnected by means of a long external escalator, which leads to games terrace, planned by Salvatore Paladino and Mimmo Paladino. On the ground, three playable games are made of volcanic stone inlayed with travertine marble: “Tris”, “Bell”, and “Maze”. Calling us to play also are the light-hearted sculptures by Salvatore Paladino. In the same terrace, albeit in a more removed corner, is found the monumental “hand” by Mimmo Paladino. The entire outdoors itinerary is punctuated by the works of many influential contemporary artists: Renato Barisani, Augusto Perez, Lucio Del Pezzo, Nino Longobardi, Riccardo Dalisi, Alex Mocika, Ugo Marano.
The station building itself is characterised by a fantastical eclecticism. The aboveground section, designed along simple yet forceful lines and faced with golden marble, evokes in the motif of the nearby Roman bridge in its succession of extensive arcades, while the steel and coloured glass spire transport us into a science-fiction future.
Along the walk from the atrium to the platform, it is possible to admire the works of Raffaella Nappo, Enzo Cucchi, LuCa, Santolo De Luca, Quintino Scolavino, Natalino Zullo. Perino&Vele, Anna Sargenti.
The station is also equipped with a second exit below via Salvator Rosa (opened in 2002), the presence of which is indicated by another spire by the Atelier Mendini, placed in the centre of a square. The base of the spire is covered in ceramic reliefs by Enzo Cucchi, refiguring a few icons of the Neapolitan imagination, while not far off, Lello Esposito’s Pulcinella, with an outward curiosity “looks out over the street, and observes the world and life”.
Behind the Pulcinella, the residential building which was inhabited by Giovanni Capurro, composer of ‘O sole mio, is enriched by coloured banners and by scenes of rain and golden rays, created by Mimmo Paladino.
Text | Maria Corbi
Photo | Luciano Romano, ANM archive
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