RESTORING THE SENSE OF PLACE. Local Development and Cultural Production in East Naples Waterfront

The paper is concerned with the regeneration project of an industrial archaeology settlement, the Corradini disused factory located in East Naples waterfront, which has been carried out during the work directed to the Urban Plan for the district of San Giovanni a Teduccio. Due to the strategic position of the Corradini along the coast, the master plan of Naples places urban and higher level functions in the settlement. As a matter of fact, it is in part devoted to the main tourist port and in part to public spaces and collective facilities for the whole city whose content has to be specified. The project of reuse of this latter part of the Corradini was carried out through a participatory investigation. The content was specified as a place of cultural production, an art factory, in which the value of the former place, a production area, survives. The Corradini regeneration project has the added value of restoring the character of cooperative work lost with the end of industrial life, which shaped the district’s local identity, and producing a vision of future strictly fitting the context. At the same time, it succeeds in keeping together culture and local development, betting on local resources, giving life to a place where doing, not consuming, is the main activity. The aim of this paper is to discuss: the Corradini in the district of San Giovanni as a response to the reconnection of the neighbourhood with the sea; the resulting project, which restores the district’s vibrancy of the industrial age; the adopted methodology, far removed from traditional approaches to cultural heritage regeneration.