entries run from 2003 - 2016
Bagnoli - Consolidated page - Jan 2003 - 2016
as of this update (Nov. 2021) I do not foresee further enrtries
This page consolidates all
entries having to do with the town of Bagnoli.
There are 13 items running from 2003 -
2016 and are here below in chronological
order and dated. Those entries are still in
the pages separately, but they are not linked
from the general index.
Bagnoli; Risanamento; Urbanology Jan 2003
Indeed, at the time, a new steel mill seemed a fine compliment to the then ongoing risanamento of Naples—the tearing down and rebuilding of vast areas of the city to make it clean, spacious and modern. Bagnoli was the perfect place to put that steel mill. The risanamento rejected other ideas for the area, including a plan by the visionary Neapolitan architect Lamont Young to transform Bagnoli into a great seaside resort with trees, sports fields, beaches and grand piers to stroll on. It was too “Victorian” —an anachronism. It is ironic that Bagnoli is now busy trying to transform itself into a great seaside resort with trees, sports fields, beaches and grand piers to stroll on.
In decades as an industrial bee-hive, Bagnoli was not just home to the Italsider steel mill, but to other industrial pleasantries, such as a thriving cement and asbestos industry —facilities built in the 1920s and 30s. Yet, as late as the 1930s, Bagnoli was still a resort town, not a bad place to spend a summer. Then, the entire area was bombed in WW2 and finished off by the “scorched earth” policy of the retreating German army in 1943. Italsider climbed back to pre-war production by 1951 and was an important part of the “economic miracle” in the 1950s in Naples. By the 1960s, however, deindustrialization was underway, and decay and industrial blight set in. Italsider closed in 1992, putting 9,000 workers out of work, an economic un-miracle all its own.
That was almost fifteen
years go. The steel mill has been demolished by
now; the ovens and smoke stacks are gone, and
acres of Bagnoli are now sitting there waiting
for some action. What has happened so far? In
1996, the impressive Science City*
opened on the old steel mill property; it is a hands-on science fair
directed at the young as well as a convention
center for broader needs. And a few months ago,
in December 2005, North Pier was opened. It is
the remodeled Italsider loading pier where
decades of ships unloaded ore in Bagnoli and
took away finished steel. It extends 800 meters
out into the Bay of Pozzuoli, such that you can
almost touch the isle of Nisida.
It is truly a fabled body of water; it is where
Ulysses and Aeneas sailed and just across the
bay from Cape Miseno and the waters of Portus
Julius , the ancient Roman home port of the
western imperial fleet. North Pier is renovated
and provides a stroll or jog for anyone who
wants to get out of what is still the dingy
little town of Bagnoli. North Pier is flanked on
the west by a thriving private beach and a
public one; on the other side, towards Nisida,
is the land that was to be the harbor for the
America’s Cup.
*Science City: for an unfortunate update from March 2013, see below.]
The land awaits
disposition according to whatever plan is
finally chosen by Bagnolifutura, a
company set up in April of 2002. The area (in
blue on map, left) includes not just the land
directly on the sea, but stretching back across
the old “steel mill road” to encompass the
entire premises of the ex-plant, extending more
than half a mile inland to Bagnoli’s next-door
neighborhood of Fuorigrotta. Bagnolifutura
will choose from among 24 plans that have “made
the cut” (from 40 submitted from around the
world) for the construction of a ca. 300 acre
“urban park” (imagine a square area
approximately 11 football fields on a side). The
park is to include—besides the above-mentioned
sports fields, beaches and grand piers to stroll
on—a camp ground at the base of the Posillipo
cliff, a new residential
area, a “music city” array of auditoriums, new
train stations, and even—in conjunction with the
renowned Dohrn aquarium in Naples, a series of
marine pools to rehabilitate
injured sea turtles and return them to the
open sea. So, with
or without the America’s Cup, the spirit of
Lamont Young is now hovering along North Pier
muttering, “I told you so.”
(I am indebted to Mr. Giovanni Capasso of Bagnolifutura for his time and the information he provided in the preparation of this article.)
Bagnoli; Risanamento; Urbanology Jan 2003
| Whatever may become of
Bagnoli, today it is still blighted by
the abandoned relics of its industrial
history. |
The
president of Italy was in Naples yesterday to
attend the opening of a new section of La
Città della Scienza (The City of
Science), a large area—about 4 square miles—in
Bagnoli, devoted to the development of a
combination hands-on science museum and
exposition grounds.
The Gulf of Naples really has two bays. In the east, the Bay of Naples, itself, includes—at the far eastern end—Sorrento; then, the towns along the slopes of Vesuvius, the city of Naples proper and the areas known as Mergellina and Posillipo. Rounding Cape Posillipo, you come to the other bay: the Bay of Pozzuoli. It is very historic and includes the small isle of Nisida, the town of Bagnoli, the fabled Flegrean Fields, Pozzuoli (with Lake Averno, the entrance to Hell in The Divine Comedy) and Baia, the site of the Roman imperial port. That bay—and the Gulf of Naples—ends at Cape Miseno, directly across from the islands of Procida and Ischia.
At the beginning of the 1900s, the eastern end of the Bay Pozzuoli—precisely, the town of Bagnoli and the area running out to Nisida—went through years of extended industrial development. A steel mill was built there as part of the mammoth development of the whole Neapolitan area, a project lasting decades and known as the Risanamento of Naples. The alternative plan—the one that not chosen—involved a quite different approach, architect Lamont Young’s plan that would have turned Bagnoli into a pseudo-Victorian imitation of a British seaside resort.
As a result of
the extreme industrialization of Bagnoli, the
area simply turned into an overbuilt blight of
grime, noise, traffic and all those things
that one would rather not associate with what
is, by common observation, one of the most
scenic bays in the Mediterranean. Things
changed in the 1990s: they closed the steel
mill and started a gradual conversion to a
post-industrial local economy more based on
tourism. The City of Science has been open
since November 2001 and is the cornerstone, so
to speak, of the whole plan. It fronts the sea
with a beach and small port for pleasure
craft. Eventually, the rejuvenation of the
area should "ripple" along the seaside past
Bagnoli and Pozzuoli to Baia at the other end.
It is an ambitious plan, and one hopes for the
best.
The
Future of Bagnoli
June 2006
or
Lamont Young’s Revenge
The new North
Pier in Bagnoli
I
suppose if Bagnoli had won its bid to host
the 2007 America’s Cup,
a splendid new harbor in Bagnoli would be
well on its way to completion, and that
blighted section of the Gulf of Naples would
be a bit further along on the path to
rejuvenation. As it turned out, Valencia,
Spain won the bid, and a new Bagnoli is
still struggling to be born— piecemeal, to
be sure. It may work and it may not. One has
no choice but to be hopeful.
Indeed, at the time, a new steel mill seemed a fine compliment to the then ongoing risanamento of Naples—the tearing down and rebuilding of vast areas of the city to make it clean, spacious and modern. Bagnoli was the perfect place to put that steel mill. The risanamento rejected other ideas for the area, including a plan by the visionary Neapolitan architect Lamont Young to transform Bagnoli into a great seaside resort with trees, sports fields, beaches and grand piers to stroll on. It was too “Victorian” —an anachronism. It is ironic that Bagnoli is now busy trying to transform itself into a great seaside resort with trees, sports fields, beaches and grand piers to stroll on.
In decades as an industrial bee-hive, Bagnoli was not just home to the Italsider steel mill, but to other industrial pleasantries, such as a thriving cement and asbestos industry —facilities built in the 1920s and 30s. Yet, as late as the 1930s, Bagnoli was still a resort town, not a bad place to spend a summer. Then, the entire area was bombed in WW2 and finished off by the “scorched earth” policy of the retreating German army in 1943. Italsider climbed back to pre-war production by 1951 and was an important part of the “economic miracle” in the 1950s in Naples. By the 1960s, however, deindustrialization was underway, and decay and industrial blight set in. Italsider closed in 1992, putting 9,000 workers out of work, an economic un-miracle all its own.
The Isle of Nisida seen from
the North Pier
That was almost fifteen
years go. The steel mill has been demolished by
now; the ovens and smoke stacks are gone, and
acres of Bagnoli are now sitting there waiting
for some action. What has happened so far? In
1996, the impressive Science City*
opened on the old steel mill property; it is a hands-on science fair
directed at the young as well as a convention
center for broader needs. And a few months ago,
in December 2005, North Pier was opened. It is
the remodeled Italsider loading pier where
decades of ships unloaded ore in Bagnoli and
took away finished steel. It extends 800 meters
out into the Bay of Pozzuoli, such that you can
almost touch the isle of Nisida.
It is truly a fabled body of water; it is where
Ulysses and Aeneas sailed and just across the
bay from Cape Miseno and the waters of Portus
Julius , the ancient Roman home port of the
western imperial fleet. North Pier is renovated
and provides a stroll or jog for anyone who
wants to get out of what is still the dingy
little town of Bagnoli. North Pier is flanked on
the west by a thriving private beach and a
public one; on the other side, towards Nisida,
is the land that was to be the harbor for the
America’s Cup.*Science City: for an unfortunate update from March 2013, see below.]
The land awaits
disposition according to whatever plan is
finally chosen by Bagnolifutura, a
company set up in April of 2002. The area (in
blue on map, left) includes not just the land
directly on the sea, but stretching back across
the old “steel mill road” to encompass the
entire premises of the ex-plant, extending more
than half a mile inland to Bagnoli’s next-door
neighborhood of Fuorigrotta. Bagnolifutura
will choose from among 24 plans that have “made
the cut” (from 40 submitted from around the
world) for the construction of a ca. 300 acre
“urban park” (imagine a square area
approximately 11 football fields on a side). The
park is to include—besides the above-mentioned
sports fields, beaches and grand piers to stroll
on—a camp ground at the base of the Posillipo
cliff, a new residential
area, a “music city” array of auditoriums, new
train stations, and even—in conjunction with the
renowned Dohrn aquarium in Naples, a series of
marine pools to rehabilitate
injured sea turtles and return them to the
open sea. So, with
or without the America’s Cup, the spirit of
Lamont Young is now hovering along North Pier
muttering, “I told you so.”(I am indebted to Mr. Giovanni Capasso of Bagnolifutura for his time and the information he provided in the preparation of this article.)
Nov. 2007
Bagnoli boat harbor—On again/off again. Back in 2002/3, Naples put in a bid for the 2007 Americas Cup boat regatta or race or whatever they call it. Winning the bid would have then entailed building a new boat harbor in Bagnoli, the proposed site for the event. When the Americas Cup went to Valencia (boo! hiss!) and not Bagnoli, I figured that the plan for the harbor—which both I and Leonardo da Vinci had considered bizarre and unworkable— would have been shelved and that Bagnoli would have to limp along in some other way in its very ambitious plan to rejuvenate itself from a century of decay.
Recent reports in the paper report that the plan is now "off again", meaning that it had been "on again" even after the Americas Cup idea got deep-sixed. I guess I wasn't paying attention. The concern is for "insabbiamento" of the area. If it were a river, that would be "silting up," so I suppose this is "sanding up." In any event, mayor Iervolino insists that the plan is going to go forward anyway, in spite of engineering and ecological concerns. So that means it's "on again." That, of course, may change.
Dec 20, 2009-
I don’t know if I can digest any more news about the splendid future of Bagnoli, a place that makes the phrase “a totally degraded pit” seem like precious understatement. In any event, the announcement has just come through that, thanks to 76 million euros from European funds, the grand Bagnoli Green Park is on its way to fruition. It’s true that they said more or less the same thing 15 years ago, but this time...just you watch. We’re talking about 120 hectares (almost 300 acres), an area as large as the grounds of the great royal palace of Caserta, much of it on land that used to contain the Italsider steel mill in Bagnoli, all full of trees, flowers, lakes and fountains. Stay tuned. Fifteen years from now, I may have a similar notice for you.
March 10, 2010
I did say I was getting tired of reading optimistic reports about the future of Bagnoli, but this one looks good. For the first time in a century, the town of Bagnoli is no longer totally separated from the sea by the steel-mill and cement factory. Those were torn down some years ago, but now even the physical wall, although only 50 yards of it—slab after slab of towering grime along via Nuova Bagnoli—has been breached as work continues on the silvery space-ship-looking Portal to the park (photo, right), a large square that should be finished soon. To be a wet blanket about it, 50 years is nothing. I have just driven around the entire old steel-mill premises and there are still miles of wall to go. The area is still a dreary wasteland of post-industrialism. I have no predictions. I read of the park, the sports fields and fountains, the gym and the museum of Industrial Archaeology, etc. They say 2013. In terms of local construction and track record for these projects, that is right around the corner. (photo credit: NewFotoSud)
Oct 24, 2010
The rise of Bagnoli from the pit of urban decay continues its progress, as painfully slow as it is painfully necessary. A new 300-seat multipurpose auditorium (photo) has just been completed on the vast grounds of the ex-steel mill. It fronts directly on via Diocleziano, the main road from Fuorigrotta to Bagnoli and is directly across from a stop on the Cumana train line, which should be convenient once the auditorium is inaugurated (this week) and regular activities commence.
April 30, 2011
Bagnoli and the Ruhr. In 2013 the Overseas Fair Grounds (Mostra d'Oltremare) in Fuorigrotta will host something called the "Culture Forum." One of the themes will be the ongoing process of converting the blight of post-industrialism—all the closed and rusted factories, decayed waterfront, etc.—into pleasant bits of suburbia, places of parks, shops, schools and homes where people will want to live and tourists visit. One of the most successful efforts in Europe has been the Ruhr region in North Rhine-Westphalia in central Germany. It is one of the most densely populated areas in Europe and at one time one of the most heavily industrialized. Over the last few decades, "post-industrialization" has taken place, and the Ruhr now has theaters, cultural centers, festivals and museums (including what are now called "industrial museums"). As a run-up to the Culture Forum, a gentleman from the Ruhr, Hans-Dietrich Schmidt, was in Naples the other day to explain the "Ruhr model" to local officials and business persons who would like to use that model for the further development of Bagnoli, once site of the Italsider steel works. Bagnoli has had some successes: a new theater, the North Pier, a hands-on science museum and exposition ground called Science City, a "Turtle Point" extension of the Dohrn Aquarium, a Maritime Museum, etc. There have been failures as well, such as the failure to lure the America's Cup regatta to Bagnoli a few years ago, which would have meant money for the construction of a suitable harbor facility. Some things are still up in the air, such as a proposed Bagnoli Green Park and an industrial museum. I gather from various sources that Herr Schmidt's presentation was a pretty solid pep-talk. You need two things: money and political will. One of those items alone won't do the trick. Both might.
March 5, 2013
March 14, 2013
More bad news for the city. A fire broke out at around 10 p.m. last night in Bagnoli on the premises of La Città della Scienza (Science City) (photo, right), a hands-on science museum and exposition grounds spread over a large area of about 4 square miles along the Bagnoli waterfront near the isle of Nisida. The facility stands on the area once occupied by the large Italsider steel mill, closed in 1992 in order to renovate the area as part of a gigantic "renaissance" project for this suburb of Naples. Science City was finished about 10 years later. The facility attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and was seen as one of the few jewels in the crown of said renaissance, which continues to sputter. The fire destroyed virtually everything in the main part of the exposition grounds. Most sources say today there is little doubt it was arson.
Now that the
NATO
HQ has moved up to the
sunny shores of Lago
Patria a few miles to
the north, the future
disposition of what used to be
NATO HQ in Bagnoli is up for
grabs, and everybody is
grabbing. (In the photo,
right, the ex-HQ is the 40
hectare (100 acre) green patch
in the middle. It is about 1
km from the Bagnoli coast
line, visible in the lower
left-hand corner). This
morning the papers announced
that the historic Palazzo
Santa Lucia is now up for
sale. (It is not far from the
Egg Castle in Naples and is
historic in the sense that
it's from the great urban
renewal of 1900 called the risanamento.
For decades the building has
housed the administrative
offices for the Campania
region of Italy.There are a few possibilities, and it is not clear if they might exclude each other or whether they might somehow co-exist. One would turn the ex-HQ into a sort of second Centro Direzionale, the new Civic Center in the eastern part of Naples; in that case you would move as many offices as possible from downtown Naples out to Bagnoli in the west, including those of the Campania administration. You would thus, so the reasoning goes, free up such buildings as the Palazzo Santa Lucia for other uses such as hotel space for tourism. Another possibility is to return the space in Bagnoli to about what it was when it started out in 1940. Originally, it was a "Young People's College" named Colleggio Ciano (named for Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law); it housed and educated about 2,500 boys. The modern incarnation sees it as a giant youth facility including schools, sports facilities, leisure activities, etc. Yet another plan would turn it all or partially into a university.
-
June
25, 2013
- Even
more bad news for Bagnoli.
After the mob burned down
Science City earlier this
year, the North Pier was
about the only place left
that hard-pressed citizens
of Bagnoli could rely on to
get away from it all. It was
a nice 1-km walk (or jog or
skip) out and back over the
sea. It is now locked. You
can't get out there. The
sign near the locked gate
says "Please excuse the
inconvenience, but we are
waiting for someone at city
hall to start keeping
promises." The city of
Naples owns 90% of the
shares in Bagnolifutura,
the company charged with
breathing new life into the
monster known as
Bagnolistein. There are 53
employees who supposedly
work to keep the pier-beast
alive. They are union
members who claim they can't
even get put on hold if they
try to get through to
someone at city hall for
some sort of indication as
to wages and other niceties.
"Uh, he's gone for the day"
is about as good as it gets.
Feb.
16, 2014
No future. BagnoliFutura, the company that so many had hoped would play a vital part in the regeneration of Bagnoli a few years ago, has declared bankruptcy and its assets are being sold off. Yesterday, many of the 80 employees of the company demonstrated at the entrance to the BagnoliFutura site in Bagnoli. As recently as last week, there was talk of all the things that could still be done —shops, residences, even a long bridge from the North Pier in Bagnoli across the waters to the small isle of Nisida! To the long-suffering residents of one of the seediest places in Italy, this is just more pie in the sky, various slices of which have been dished up for over 20 years ever since the Italsider steel mill was torn down. There would be boat harbors, green parks, this, that and the other thing. There have been bright spots such as the opening of the North Pier and Science City, but, in between, there has been corruption and mob-driven violence (such as the arson episode that destroyed the first of those two bright spots I just mentioned.
May 30, 2014
Speaking of dreams and those that come to naught, the Bagnolifutura corporation, founded ten years ago in a burst of enthusiasm for the future of one of the seediest bits of urban blight in Italy, was officially declared defunct, bankrupt, kaputt by the Neapolitan courts yesterday. It isn't clear, at least to me, what this means for the future disposition of the properties. I have written 10 or so separate items on Bagnoli in these pages—some optimistic, some skeptical.
April 3, 2016
portal for urban development to top of this page
© 2002 - 2023