The project aims to enhance the ancient Rari Nantes club at the entrance of the Port of Santa Lucia in front of Castel dell’Ovo, close to Monte Echia where it was founded the first urban settlement of Parthenope in the eighth century BC, between the districts San Ferdinando and Chiaia, and very close to the Fontana del Gigante designed by Pietro Bernini.
The project enriches the extraordinary prominence of the site on the sea and on the famed view of the bay of Naples, characterized in that point by the simultaneous views of Mount Vesuvius and Capri. For this reason, the choice has been to regularize the existing circular shape of the platform and limit the volumes between the sea and the street levels, maximizing the development of the facade towards the sea and minimizing the services towards the ground.
The circular composition of the platform on the water is articulated with a series of rays, which have their fulcrum in the central span of the Fontana del Gigante, in correspondence with which is created the bisector of the new intervention, as well as the central axis that determines the entrance to the club going down towards the sea.
In this way, the rooftop is configured as the public extension of the sidewalk, while the stair becomes the belvedere-seat towards the sea.
As a whole, the project creates a transversal continuous system of Via Partenope seamlessly between the entrance of Saint Lucia and the Hotel Excelsior: The hotel’s ground floor is, in fact, conceived with greater public openness, hosting private functions for public use that are accessible directly from the street.
In this way, we realize the first piece of the jigsaw desired by the public administration, which, having started the pedestrianization of Via Partenope, aims to “liberate” the seafront of Napoli.