THE CLOISTER OF MONTEOLIVETO IN NAPLES

The Monteoliveto monastery complex is an extremely compound urban artifact: located in one of the cores of the historic area of Naples, has been neglected and repeatedly violated in its urban shape and in its function. The massive urban renewal process that involved the whole San Giuseppe - Carità district in the 30’s, under the Fascist Government, upset the historic urban fabric of the area. This operation created new spatial conditions and new possible relationships among existing historic buildings and new constructions. The Regie Poste e Telegrafi building, designed in the early 30’s and completed in 1936 by architect Giuseppe Vaccaro, would have acted as a mediator between the new Piazza Matteotti (its main front) and the more enclosed space of the Main Cloister, one of the few bits of the monastery to survive the renewal plan. Unfortunately a progressive loss of interest for the cloister as an urban space, combined with the different and often inappropriate functions that came over time, caused the current state of abandonment and decay of the cloister itself and of the areas to both sides of the Poste building. The Urban Design Course held by Professor Giovanni Multari at the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II investigated, through a process of analysis, research, collective debate and design, the possible solutions to rediscover, reuse and regenerate the extraordinary cloister space.