Analysis Of The Sails Of Scampa's Le Vele

Sails of Scampia Scampia's " Le Vele " ("The Sails") worked between the mid 60's and mid 70's, epitomized the idea of “residential machine”; they comprise of megastructures where singular spaces were a piece of an immense arrangement of public and shared zones, demonstrating social experimentation mainstream in the earlier century. The architect Francesco Di Salvo was first entrusted with building a new Scampia housing block building in the urban areas surrounding Naples – an initiative to provide housing for over 70 thousand people – he proposed to build seven residential super-blocks. Di Salvo proposed an arrangement for the
This noble idea, based on the familiar architectural concept of an elevated residential street with outstretching alleys and numerous pedestrian galleries, was to provide the city with a new comfortable neighbourhood. The new Scampia was to become a generator of community between its residents, the initiator of urban diversity, architectural innovation, and social cohesion. The people of Naples were shown an idealistic vision of a town of socialist architecture, a textbook example of the genuine concern expressed by an honest welfare state, of its dreams of equality and social inclusion. Di Salvo enthusiastically imagined the Scampia blocks as massive urban ships, large vessels with tall masts and sails, still referred to as The Sails of Scampia. In addition to providing a new residential block, the Scampia project was supposed to encourage the rapid development of public transport and the urban socialization of local inhabitants. The proximity of the train station, tram stations and buses were meant to ensure a reliable connection between Scampia and the old city centre, allowing for genuine integration of urban and pedestrian routes, and breathing fresh life into a previously neglected area. The plans included a new motel, a
Some of the flats, concealed within this sizeable concrete anthill of residential isles and concrete boxes, quietly and gradually turned into ideal shelters for mobsters, while smaller apartments became infamous sources of drug trade. Scampia soon became infected by the malady of drugs and crime, a disease which soon spread throughout the body of the Scampia Sails. The ground floor and its isolated isles – initially composed as spaces for shops, kindergartens and different regulatory and social offices – transformed into drug havens. Hundreds of drug users inhabited the open grounds for varying periods of time. On the upper floors, abandoned or permanently closed apartments became stores for the sale of drugs or the offices of Camorra members. The design of Scampia – originally conceived as a safe place of social interaction within a new neighbourhood – became a criminal fortress. The building and its brutalist architecture became a tower of narcotics, a satanic castle providing the drug market with an ironically infernal vision of sustainability. In 1997 and later in 2003, three of the seven original.
Scampia buildings were blown up. The other four remained upright, condemned to being occupied by illegal squatters .
The aim of the study was to explore the impact of Brutalism in Italy, in particular how it was readjusted to the Italian