THE FIRST RAILWAY STATION NAPLES-PORTICI IN ITALY. CONSERVATION AND REUSE

The Bayard station of the Naples-Portici line, the first railway in continental Europe, opened on 3 October 1839, during the reign of Ferdinand II of Bourbon, and it is an authentic nineteenth century masterpiece. The project, signed by civil engineer Armando Joseph Bayard de la Vingtrie, is an example of infrastructure innovation in a time when the industrial revolution was also involving architectural research. For the construction of this station an area free from buildings was identified, along Via de’ Fossi (now Corso Garibaldi), beyond the Aragonese Walls, the nerve center of all the commercial activities in the city. Over the years the building has undergone numerous transformations and changes, until its conversion to a theater and cinema in the early decades of the twentieth century, finally abandoned after the damage caused by the World War II. Now the station is in a state of ruin, enveloped by a massive infesting vegetation and affected by dangerous phenomena of instability and decay. By starting from a deep knowledge of history, technology and construction we tried to think about the rebirth possibility of the ancient Bayard station, by providing a compatible reuse project that can return to the community one of the symbol places in the pre-unification Italy.