The New Terminal

The running of the Harbour Station has recently been entrusted to a Public Limited Company of which the Port authority has a 5% share with mainly monitoring functions, while the majority shareholding is held by several important shipping companies (20% Royal Caribbean, 20% Costa Crociere, 20% Marinvest, 20% Terminal Trade, 10% Interschip srl, 5% MSC cruises).
The main tasks of the new company involve reorganising and optimising the reception and running operations of the Cruise Terminal. The project is planned to create conference facilities, restaurants, shopping centres, shipping services associated with a modern and efficiently-run passenger terminal.

History

The harbour station, a monumental work designed by Cesare Bazzani in 1936 as a replacement for the old harbour station on Pisacane Wharf.

The Harbour station area can justifiably be termed a monumental complex in its entirety: the Harbour station building is monumental in terms of its universally recognised architectural features which has led to its being protected by restrictions established by a specific decree drafted by the Environmental and Heritage Office; the wharf on which the building stands is similarly monumental in scale and provides continuity with piazza Municipio overlooked by the main representative symbols of the city – the royal palace, Castel Nuovo, the city council building and, in the background, the hill with the castle of Castel Sant’Elmo and the charterhouse of San Martino as a sort of plinth.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, following the arduous work to isolate the castle of Maschio Angioino, a gently sloped plane leads from the city council building to the edge of the port created by means of the complete demolition of its fortifications.

The new layout of the port area reflected the intention of the fascist regime to assign a new role to the port of Naples, which thus became one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean.
As a symbolic feature of a re-modelled landscape, the building was intended to fulfil the dual task of representing the port of a maritime city and defining the western face of the piazza.

In 1933 a competitive tender was announced by the Ministry for Public Works or the planning of a new building which was to be constructed on the new Angioino wharf, a large artificial isthmus 120 metres wide and stretching 400 metres into the Bay of Naples.
The new quay layout enabled the largest transatlantic cruise liners of the day to moor comfortably and 20,000 square metres for the construction of a new station

From the various planning proposals submitted for the tender, the project that was eventually chosen was that of Cesare Bazzani, one of the most active architects during the twenty year period of the fascist regime, while the work was commissioned to the company of Ferrobeton; the building was constructed between 1934 -1936
Based on a study formulated by the Civil Engineering Corps, the announcement of competition indicated the area of the wharf for the building project and imposed severe restrictions.
The building was to be constructed from two parts of the building connected to each other by a sort of bridge – a transversal structure made of three beams. Between the two building sites ran two railway lines for the travelling passenger office and on the ground floor was intended to provide space for the offices for emigrants, goods and offices linked to railway transport; the study of the other offices and services was the responsibility of the architect.
The study had to take account of the mooring of four transatlantic liners which involved about 4,000 people distinguishing the travelling passengers according to class and dividing these categories on departure and on arrival.
The solution chosen by Bazzani is based on rigorous bilateral symmetry, which was suggested by the instructions of the announcement of competition; in the two narrow and elongated parts of the building stretching towards the city, two identical foyers were built, one for the entrance and one for the exit, together with the main connections with the bridgeheads stretching out towards the sea, housing respectively the restaurant services for luxury ad economy classes.

Of the three interconnected transversal bodies of the building, the two outer parts housed the waiting rooms while the central art housed the large main hall which was designed to house the customs office, on whose axis two galleries were built which enabled access to the boarding and disembarking walkways.
From the two identical foyers enclosed between the monumental grand staircase and the hill of San Martino, a view of which is captured in the space within the enormous ached windows, long corridors lead to the central halls and the boarding areas.
Based on a symmetrical layout and restrainedly monumental, the building is a bridge-like construction with two long wings measuring 181.50 metres. Each wing is 27.50 metres wide, between which the building is suspended at the height of the first transverse floor, built on a lowered vault designed to reinforce its image as a “gateway” to the city and the sea.
The grey lava stone quarried from Vesuvius marks the podium, obscured by the shelters, while the warmth of travertine marble decorates the bridgeheads and the access portals.

The external sculptural decoration on the land-facing part of the building comprises twelve monolithic medallions in stone from Trani; eight of the medallions symbolise Rome-Athens-Naples-West Africa -Cairo-New York-Rio de Janeiro-Calcutta, two represent sailing navigation and air transport, while the remaining two reproduce a type of ancient Roman ship and an extremely modern type of passenger steamer.
There are also four bronze metopes symbolising the Dioscuri and the wealth of sea traffic, placed on the two sides of the main entrance portals; lastly, there are two bronze horses, the heraldic symbols of Naples, the finishing touches to the two round parts of the building facing the sea.

From being the symbol of the Imperial port to the painful location of emigration from the south of Italy, the Harbour Station, destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, would be rebuilt “as it used to be and where it used to be”.