Benevento
Civico 22 intervenes with Pino Iorio on the project relating to the reconstruction of the Federico Torre and Nicola Sala schools: “
“With the demolition of the Federico Torre and Nicola Sala schools, the city loses an important page of rationalist architecture, as it was expressed here in Benevento before and after the war: long facades covered in marble or terracotta, ribbon windows, glass block , slender protruding shelters, destructured corners with clear and recognizable volumes, bright and rational interiors. Unaware of sacrificing a piece of the city’s history, the designers were in the meantime undertaking the arduous challenge of containing the overflowing volumes in the project, within the imposed limits. by urban planning regulations.
This challenge, unfortunately, seems essentially lost to us, as can be seen from the design choices: 45 m2 classrooms only three meters high, the greenery limited to a few small meadows between the rubber parking nets, and little else; a pile of volumes piled up on the area of the Tower, without the neighboring one “breathing”, due to the presence of the offices and the auditorium.
It would seem like a problem without a solution, but it is there, right there, underfoot, and it is the enormous underground volume of almost 7,000 m3 which the designers, as they candidly declare in the report, have deliberately left unfinished and unused, perhaps fearing which, adding to the higher ones, would make the project “explode”. A large cavern, a sort of closed and dark mine but with a treasure: precisely that volume, also served by many stairs and elevators, to which a further ramp could be added to allow independent entry from the outside.
Having placed the gym floor in the basement, three meters below, there is nothing to prevent the offices from being built on the gym ceiling, at the level of the first floor of the schools; and if that volume, studied and pleasant, with all the necessary services (the space is there…) hosted the events that were not possible to hold in the other rooms of the neighbourhood, alternating for only a few days with children’s sports, the auditorium as an autonomous structure it would no longer be useful.
The grounds of the Nicola Sala would then be completely free and be used as greenery, with lawns, trees, gazebos for outdoor lessons: the internal part, large, fenced and also served by the pedestrian walkway (an architecture-sculpture to be plan with extreme care) would be reserved for school children, the one outside the neighborhood, avoiding mixing. But everyone would enjoy the entire garden to be reunited, on occasion, with the opening of separation gates.
The sacrifice of the building designed by architect Vincenzo Miccolupi remains unresolved, which could have been consolidated and renovated as will be done with the classical high school. It is probably too late to try to recover at least the facades, due to the risk of losing the financing without another one in sight. The Torre school, on the other hand, is not just the facades, which if preserved alone would remain a mere simulacrum, but it is/was a living, functional and rational organism, made up of environments that according to the spirit of the time, and of every era, combine firmitas, venustas, utilitas (stability, beauty and utility).
The PNRR risks being a destructive fury for our city if the large amount of money is not used for real urban revitalization projects aimed at quality of life and the harmonious design of the neighborhoods. Today the administration should have the courage to suspend the bulldozers and dialogue with the citizens. Can we hope?”
