The Incurables Hospital complex in the Ancient Center of Naples: a project between layers

The Incurables Hospital complex, defined as “the most articulated complex of the ancient center of Naples”, is an exemplary case of how signs of time can accumulate on them-selves, creating unitary spaces. Bombings, which in 1943 destroyed some parts of the complex, led to operations of demolitions and re-construction that permanently altered its relation with the ancient city walls. The traces of the walls, the “wound” of the ruined front, the new configurations brought by post-war re-construction are all pieces of a hard-ly transformable space, but a space of great interest for a contemporary architectural pro-ject. The proposed design strategy provides a spatial re-interpretation of different “layers” that characterize the complex stratified architectural “mass”: the underground level, the level of gardens and the level of terraces. In overlapped layers of historic city lies the op-portunity to recover a continuity of connections, “re-discovering” significant forgotten spaces and creating a continuous path.