New Ways to Reappropriate Spaces ‘In Ruin’ in the Ancient Center of Naples

The Acropolis-agorà, core of ancient Naples, is a place in slow abandonment, where ancient complexes, archaeological fragments, war ruins and urban voids shape a complicated, multiform and unitary spatial system at different levels. The abandonment is often partial, it is due to several causes and it develops in different times and ways. Although it is a ‘space in ruin’, the Acropolis-agorà keeps the role of one of the most representative places of the city and for those who live there. Here, heterogeneous overlapping, unchanged traces, not finished, presence of concurrent times create a highly identifiable space. Despite this condition, it is possible to think of these spaces in terms of innovative design, breaking the gap between public and private spaces, between monuments and contexts and thinking of a unitary architecture to be read and used in different ways. The proposed design strategy for Acropolis-agorà consists of a spatial re-interpretation and a consequent functional re-organization. The spatial re-interpretation involves the creation of a system on several levels, the archaeological level, the courts level and that of the roofs, which will hold together, in one spatial sequence, these different elements. The result is a new layer, that we can define as ‘connective’, that is able to build an interconnected space through specific architectural interventions. The consequent functional re-organization aims to hold together fragments of existing functions, that are residential, hospital, university, museum, shopping and crafts, creating a new organization within the three main layers, that gives life to different uses of places. Through these operations, it is possible to fight against dynamics of abandonment and to re-appropriate spaces ‘in ruin’, breaking the contrast between public and private space and getting a change of sense that highlights innovative potential of ancient spaces and new ways to live and perceive them.