Naples ’ network of art stations is getting a new addition. On Thursday, September 11, the Monte Sant’Angelo station, designed by British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor, will be inaugurated along Line 7. The project, as reported by the Sky Arte website, commissioned in 2003 and remained in gestation for more than 20 years between conception and execution, brings to the Traiano district a structure in which art and architecture merge into a single language. A place designed to generate suggestions and open reflections on the relationship between body, space and urban landscape.
The most obvious presence is the imposing Corten steel sculpture that marks the main entrance to the station. With its tapered form, the work seems to emerge from the ground like a geological mass, destined to change appearance over time through the natural process of oxidation. The effect visually recalls a gateway to the underground, evoking imagery that also harkens back to Dantean suggestions. Different, however, is the solution adopted for the entrance on the Trajan side, where a smooth and regular tubular volume takes the form of a metal ring and returns a clear urban legibility. The design is not limited to the exterior. Inside the station, in collaboration with studio Future Systems, Kapoor conceived environments characterized by rough, essential tunnels. Irregular walls and deliberately unfinished surfaces transform the space into a textural context devoid of decorative trappings. A balanced combination of function and imagination thus prevails.
The two entrances, opposite in form but complementary in conception, create a path that alternates monumentality and formal rigor, accompanying passengers in an experience that goes beyond the simple crossing of an infrastructure. Comparison with other public works by the artist helps to understand the station’s layout. Like the well-known Cloud Gate in Chicago, the new Neapolitan structure is designed to alter the perception of those who experience it. Kapoor uses monumental scale to affect collective space, transforming a place of transit into a context capable of stimulating questions and new perceptions. The arrival of the Monte Sant’Angelo station continues the tradition of the so-called art stations in Naples, an urban and cultural project that has involved international artists and prominent architects for years. In this setting, Kapoor’s presence adds an additional dimension, both for the symbolic value of the corten sculpture and for the dialogue between aesthetics and function that distinguishes the intervention. The work thus becomes part of an infrastructure system that, in addition to transportation, aspires to redefine the urban image of the city.
The artist’s profile explains the decision to entrust him with a project of this magnitude. Born in Mumbai in 1954 and moved to London for training, Kapoor took his first steps on the international scene in the late 1970s. Consecration came between 1990 and 1991, when he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, receiving the Premio Duemila, and at the same time he won the Turner Prize, Britain’s principal award for contemporary art. Since then his works have become part of the permanent collections of museums such as the Tate Modern in London and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, as well as permanently occupying public spaces in international metropolises.
Kapoor’s language, based on the use of industrial materials, reflective surfaces and striking structures, has made him one of the most recognizable artists on the global scene. In recent years his exhibitions have been hosted in institutions such as Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and the Château de Versailles. On each occasion the artist has proposed interventions that place the visitor at the center of a perceptual experience, oscillating between physicality and abstraction.
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| In Naples, the new Monte Sant'Angelo station signed by Anish Kapoor |
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