entry Dec
2008 updates: Dec 2013 & May
2016
#27 in Period Postcards
The Grand Hotel Londres
Sooner or later, they will
finish the metro construction
mess at Piazza Municipio
and you'll be able to see the Grand Hotel Londres in all its glory.
Well, maybe not original glory (pictured, left)
since it is no longer a hotel; it houses the TAR (Tribunale amministrativo
regionale) Campania
[The Administrative Court for the Campania Region of
Italy] on most of the floors and a cultural exchange
organization, The
Mediterranean Foundation, on others. As noted
below, the hotel opened in 1899; there are a few
tell-tales that the image itself is from shortly
thereafter. First, the gigantic port passenger terminal of Molo
Beverello from the 1930s is not yet in place; second,
the hotel runs almost to the seaside. The wide seaside
port road, via Marina, is not yet in place, nor is the
additional seaside block of new buildings (both are
visible in a later postcard,
#26. I p)lace the image at 1900-1905. The Maschio
Agioino (Angevin fortress) is visible directly
across the square (Piazza Municipio) on the right. (I
have indexed this in the postcard
selections as #27.) (My thanks to Peter H. for
providing me with this image.)
The
building, itself, was a result of the grand urban
renewal project known as the risanamento
undertaken after a disastrous cholera epidemic in 1884.
The Grand Hotel
Londres opened in 1899 and was designed by Giovan Battista Comencini
for the Società
Veneta, a northern firm at the time the largest
Italian builders of railways and public works. (The firm
was responsible for the entire rebuilding of the main
square, Piazza Municipio, as part of the overall risanamento.)
Comencini's other architectural and engineering
activities in Naples at about the same time include his
design for the Grand
Hotel Santa Lucia (1906) on the sea-front
across from the Castel dell'Ovo
and his participation in the new construction at
Mergellina, including the Laziale tunnel that still connects
that area to Fuorigrotta, beyond the Posillipo hill.
The
design of the facade of the Grand Hotel Londres reflects the
general European architectural tendencies at the turn of
that century towards the style known in English by the
French term, Art
Nouveau. (As a point of interesting
confusion--and certainly more than you want to know-- in
Italian that style is called by the English term
"Liberty,” after an English gentleman with the
fascinating name of Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty, whose
shop in London specialized in Art Nouveau objects. In Germany, it
was called Jugendstil,
though in Austria, where they, too, speak German, it was
called the "Secessionist" style because...well, as I
said, you don't want to know.)
For most of
its existence, the Grand
Hotel Londres was, in fact, a pretty classy
hotel, though it was dangerously close to the port of
Naples and the bombings
of WWII. (It housed Allied personnel after the
war.) Later, it fell on hard times financially and was
closed. I remember seeing many years ago entire families
of homeless squatters on the premises. They had simply
taken over the hotel and hung their “We Shall Not Be
Moved” banners from the balconies. As a matter of fact,
it is very
difficult in Italy, legally, to move squatters from
abandoned or otherwise unoccupied buildings. Eventually,
they moved or were
moved, but I don't remember the circumstances.
update: Dec. 2013: New Museum opened in the Grand
Hotel Londres
A new museum has
opened in Naples. It is the Mediterranean Museum
of Art, Music and Traditions (MAMT), occupying
space on five floors of the old Grand Hotel Londres
(see item above this one), two blocks from the port of
Naples. The museum is a spin-off of the Fondazione
Mediterraneo, the headquarters of which are on
the premises. The Foundation was the brain child of Michele
Capasso, a local engineer and architect who
founded the organization in 1991 with the aim of
promoting understanding among Mediterranean nations.
In that spirit, the museum displays artifacts bearing
witness to the civilizations and peoples of over 40
countries: from the art of Muslim women to sphinxes
and votive offerings; from the marvels of Murano to
nativity scenes. The symbol of the museum is the Totem
of Peace by Italian sculptor, Mario Molinari; it is a
stylized red sail, representing (from the literature
of the museum) “...not only the tragedies and the
dead that have blood-stained the Mediterranean, the
Middle East region and the rest of the World but,
essentially, the rebirth of trust and the
reconstruction of dialogue...” In that spirit,
the museum was inaugurated in the common prayer room,
a space that accommodates the monotheistic religions
of the Mediterranean.
Ever Neapolitan, Capasso has left space on the
premises for another acronym, the MIP—Museum of Pizza!
Even more, you can arrange to spend a night in the
room where Churchill stayed! At the present time, the
Hotel (which also houses some municipal office space)
is somewhat overshadowed by the enormous construction
site for the new Piazza Municipio underground metro
train station. When the station is finished and
finally opened (providing the Mediterranean has not
totally evaporated by then), the museum will be in an
ideal location, close to the port and a large working
metro station. It looks good.
This is one of those things I am optimistic
about, perhaps because I went down and gave a talk at
the foundation once and found myself surrounded by
young enthusiastic journalists from almost every
nation that borders on the Mediterranean. Capasso is
proud of pointing out that the museum was ''…created
without any contribution from institutions and
governments… it is the only one of its kind in the
world and has come into being thanks to the
collaboration of individuals working in the fields
of culture and art in several countries, as well as
diplomats, teachers, experts and representatives of
the most important international organizations. It
houses exhibits, relics, documents, videos and
photographs as well as the donations from the heads
of state and government that have visited the
premises.''
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