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"You Leave
the Mergellina Station 'bout a Quarter-to-Four..." (Sorry. I can't
help myself.)
The
opening of the station was front-page news in Naples at the time. It
was one of many stations and other public buildings opened during the
same
few weeks throughout Italy, carefully timed for the nation-wide fifth
annivsary celebration of the "Fascist Revolution" (that is, Mussolini's
March on Rome of October 28, 1922). The new Naples-Rome rail-link was
given thousand of words of journalistic hyperbole: it was the logical
modern extension of the ancient Roman dedication to road building—a
modern road of steel now flanks the ancient Appian Way. That sort of
thing. The fact of the new rail line got more attention than the
station
itself; yet, there was a paragraph of praise for the architect, G.B.
Milani, who had managed to build "a fluid facade...big but not heavy."
The architectural term used to describe
Milani's creation was: "...barochetto
romano". That is, the
station is, indeed, Baroquely ornate. ("Barochetto" refers to a
transitional period to Rococo (around 1720). Indeed, bits of the facade
would
fit right in with some Neapolitan architecture from
that period.The
station was not meant to look 200 years old, however; it was built to
fit in with other buildings in the area, many of which were quite fashionable and from 1890-1910, built roughly in the
style known in
Italian as
"Liberty" (known in English by the French term "Art Nouveau".) That
style,
itself, is self-consciously ornate, highly decorative and
features—among other
curls, swirls and undulations—writhing plant forms, which you find on
the station of Mergellina. Characteristic, too, of
"Liberty" buildings in Naples is the presence of classical
statuary, which you also find. (Those statues give you the "Roman" in "barochetto romano").
Thus, the station,
cleverly, looked old and modern at the same time. (I am thankful that the station did
not fall victim—as
did many similar buildings from the 1920s—to
the
Fascist
wrecking balls of the 1930s, when the regime decided to go into
giant, smooth
marble-slab architecture. (The main post office in Naples is larger
than Holland.)
The
original facade at Meregellina had just to the right of the main
entrance a six-foot-high plaque marking Mussolini's opening of the
station on the fifth anniversary of Fascism. That plaque was either
removed or destroyed during the events of WW2. It will be interesting
see if they restore it. After all, the original Fascist-era inscription
on the main post-office was restored recently. It, however, is well
above the reach of vandals with spray cans. We shall see. ------------------------------------
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The history of
efforts to give the city of Naples a good, modern underground train
system—called a Metropolitana—is long and complicated. It
starts with the
first never-to-be realized proposal of Lamont Young in 1884 and runs
through
ongoing construction (started in the 1970s) to build an extensive
underground
rail network dedicated solely to the Metropolitana. "Solely,"
because for many decades, whatever metro line existed in Naples at all
was a single line sharing the same track with the main Naples-Rome rail
route, itself an interesting project in which the station at Mergellina
plays an
integral part.
What even many
Neapolitans call, simply, the "Metro station" at Mergellina is in
reality the "other" station (besides the main station at Piazza
Garibaldi) in Naples for long distance rail travel. When Mergellina
station was
opened on October 28, 1927, it completed the Naples-Rome link running
west out
of the city, then up the coast towards the capital. 
Anyone
with a knowledge of the
various
waves of architecture that have surged through the city of Naples over
the centuries can look around and say, "That's Angevin;
that's Bourbon, that's Spanish; that's monolithic Fascist Art Deco from
the
1930's..." When you come to 1900 in Naples, however, things
get
a little confused. If you say, "Oh, that building is Risanamento,"
you are naming the mammoth urban renewal project that rebuilt Naples
between
1880 and 1915; that is, you are naming a period of time, not an
architectural
style. The same goes for "Umbertino"—applied to architecture
and almost anything else— including hair style (!)—popular during the
age of
King Humbert I of Italy (monarch from 1878-1900). That term applies
throughout
Italy and, again, refers to a period of time and not a specific style
of
architecture. 