Bagnoli Post-industrial Park: An Integral Approach

Bagnoli Post-industrial Park: An Integral Approach

Introduction Naples is the third largest city in Italy. It is a city long famous for its geographical advantages, as well as its porosity and informality - still same as Walter Benjamin experienced in 1944. However, a high level of decay is evident in social and housing indicators as well as the census data (Mazzeo, 2009). The city faces complex challenges in many aspects. Academics have been blaming its degradation largely on its lack of a clear development strategy, or a city master plan, which, was mainly due to the failure to balance the real estates' developmental interest and the town planning (Mazzeo, 2009; Allum, 2003).

Historically, there were attempts to carry out a development plan for the peripheral industrial zone in 1978 which aimed to build new homes and stop urban degeneration (Mazzeo, 2009). Unfortunately, the earthquake in 1980 impeded the new plan (Ibid). Based on the past plans and projects, this essay is going to propose a strategic urban intervention of Bagnoli in Naples, a suburban neighbourhood to the west of the city and used to be an industrial site. Responding to Bagnoli's socio-economic, demographic and environmental facts and challenges, the essay will then look into the post-industrial brownfield in Bagnoli specifically regarding its sluggish development and attainable potentials. A strategic scheme will be introduced on a green system, park and public activities with referencing to some of the successful precedents of the postindustrial landscape. Taking into consideration its limitations and risk, the essay will end with identifying its outcomes.

The Italian economy has a significant North-South division, with the South falling much behind, and this can be dated back to the unification in 1861 (See Fig. 2). Being the largest southern Italian city, while having an anaemic economy, Naples has a high rate of unemployment (28%), with the youth unemployment rate strikingly reaching 75%, compared to Bologna’s 15 %, which is relating to educational conditions(ISTAT, 2008).

The density of Naples is 8,273 pp/km², ranking top among large Italian cities(Mazzeo, 2009). In fact, situated at one of the most beautiful coastlines in Italy, Naples has excellent tourism resources. However, its reputation suffers

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Fig. 1. Bagnoli Source: "Bagnoli Ieri e oggi" Giuseppe Cristoforoni, (2015)

Fig.2. Real GDP per capita, $USD 2010. Source: CityMetric Intelligence.

from the scandals of its constant waste crisis, the Campania mafia Camorra and their crimes and there were rumours about the cities bankruptcy state. Some argued that the city was never recovered since the post-war era.

The neighbourhood of Bagnoli situates on the western coast of the city; It has around 24671 inhabitants and the density of 3,099 pp/ km² (comparing to the 8,273 pp/km² in Naples)(See Fig.3). Facing the Mediterranean sea, the eight km² neighbourhood possesses rich landscape and environmental resources. The public transport enables an excellent connection to the city centre.

Bagnoli is one of the earliest and most significant industrial areas in Southern Italy, with its industrial activity dates back to 1853, when the chemical factory of Ernesto Lefevre and the Melchiorre-Bournique glass factory were established. Therefore, the settlement and development were mainly around industrial activities. In 1961, the steel company Italsider opened its plant in Bagnoli, and after 30 years, it closed down in 1992, accompanied by the commission of the first directly elected Mayor Antonio Bassolino. For Bagnoli, Italsider is a steelworks as well as a symbol (Bull and Jones, 2006).

Fig.3. Location of Bagnoli in Naples. Source: CityMetric Intelligence.

Today, Naples is experiencing a post-industrial stage after coming through a strong industrial one (Mazzeo, 2009), and Bagnoli has gone through different development plans but still mostly brownfield with only three new elements being built, namely the Park Entrance, The Aquarium and the Sports Park (See Fig.4). Grand urban schemes have been coming out since Bassolino’s time - both of Naples and Bagnoli.

However, without a strong social and economic status as the foundation, such schemes were miscarried at the implementation stage.

Fig.4 La Porta del Parco, L’Acquario Tematico and Parco dello sport

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Reflection on the Past Regeneration Plans for Bagnoli

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In 1993, the Mayor Bassolino’s election was almost simultaneous with the eventual closure of Italsider plant (Bull and Jones, 2006). The left-wing Italian politician who was aspired to fight against corruption while proposing a democratic innovation and cultural renascence of the city. In this light, Bagnoli naturally became the site of a new vision from its industrial relics. A rather controlled planning was coming out to avoid private speculation and meanwhile proposed to transform the most of the site to public park along with an unpolluted beach for the public (Comune di Napoli, 1995). Among the nine areas in the plan, the public park was taking up to 120ha (61% of the whole area). This environmentalism ideology successfully formed a sharp contrast to the previous manufacturing land, which also aimed at providing a certain amount of commercial activities and employment opportunities. With this grand picture of Bagnoli and other improvement brought to Naples, Bassolino was reelected in 1997. Nevertheless, the plan may be too ambitious to a new administration, that the legal process was not completed until 2003, under a different mayor Rosa Russo Iervolino (Bull and Jones, 2006).

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‘Town planning is politics rather than an exercise’, as Vezio De Luzia, the former planning consultant of Bassolino put (Allum, 2003). In addition to this, he suggested when plans and implementations become ineffective unless they were efficiently carried out soon since the longer period it experienced, the more unwanted developments would occur (Allum,2003). Although one would agree on the point that plans and their implementation should be effectively carried out, the ‘unwanted developments’ here may be politically biased.

Nevertheless, the ‘unwanted developments’ in Bagnoli did bring different levels of chaos, which, in turn, postponed the implementation of the wider plan. Unlike some successful postindustrial regeneration projects across Europe, in which the land was reclaimed to be public-owned, there are several privately owned pieces of land in Bagnoli that need a compulsory purchase procedure. For example, the Science City (Citta` Della Scienza) was built along the coastline of Bagnoli taken up to 65,000 square metres, of which 45,000 are refurbished factories (Bull, 2005). It is in fact included in the new masterplan but located on a different site, and the relocation of the Science City was held up due to its powerful patrons, before a fire on 4 March 2013 destroyed the most of the Science City. The Science City was built envisioning it to be a science park like the ones in some European cities (Bull, 2005), it is arguably an arbitrary decision made back in the 1980s since there were poor factor conditions, demands or supporting industries for a science park in Bagnoli.

Since the approval in 2003, the regeneration plan was facing different levels of difficulties which is not limited to the governance approach experiment that aimed at a negotiated planning. The public company BagnoliFutura Spa was established to implement the plan since 2002, following its bankruptcy in 2014. The company did bring the North Pier back to the public as a pleasant 1 km walkway into the sea. However, it was temporarily locked from the public in 2013 due to the strike of the company. These situations seem far from the democratic vision brought up by Bassolino almost 20 years ago. There are approvals and document issued of the plan in 2005, 2007, 2014 and 2015 respectively, but the only ongoing projects in Bagnoli are an auditorium built in 2010, together with an aquarium and a sports park under construction.

Despite the rough fate of Bagnoli’s regeneration since 1993, it is noteworthy that the proposal of public green space is always emphasized in the regeneration plan (See Fig.5 ). Although never realised, I would argue that this persistent feature in the regeneration plans of Bagnoli should be the priority in the implementation stage.

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Fig.5 The evolution of Bagnoli’s plan

A Proposed Urban Intervention – Post-industrial Park The Neapolitan culture of gathering in public space is evident on its street, piazzas and markets, moreover, the high-urban density and relatively small dwelling size have pushed Neapolitan people out from their private sphere. In this light, public infrastructure is crucial. Following the focuses on the green system in Bagnoli's planning trajectory, this urban intervention is going to propose a post-industrial park on the illustrated location (see fig. 6). The size of the park will be roughly 100ha, which is 20-80ha smaller than the park proposed before, with the aim to have a more feasible process of reclamation and legalisation. However, the chosen site covers all the industrial relics including the blast furnace, the power plant of Itasider as well as the newly built aquarium ‘turtle point’. It has adjacency to the nearby neighbourhood as well as to public transport that connects the city centre. The north pier is accessible in the proposed park, which is an asset.

The strategic intervention is going to decontaminate and regenerate the site with reference to the other examples across the world to recycle ‘manufactured sites.’ In the book ‘Manufacture Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape’, Niall Kirkwood defined these site like the ones often found in cities that their current condition is the result of previous activities of industrial manufacture and waste disposal(Kirkwood, 2011). Moreover, these past activities have formed the primary identity and predominant features of the place(Kirkwood, 2011). He argues these sites will need interdisciplinary strategies in the decontamination and reclamation process (Kirkwood, 2011). In urban planning discourse, this type of land is also categorised as brownfields.

In this light, Bagnoli, with its prevailing character being an industrial site, and has been severely polluted from the industrial manufacturing and illegal activities of rubbish disposal by local mafia, fits into this definition.

Also, the Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord will be the main precedent for referencing (See Fig.7).

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Fig. 6. Proposed Park Location

Fig.7 Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord https://www.latzundpartner.de/en/projekte/postindustrielle-landschaften/

The proposed urban intervention is aspired to follow a series of strategies responding to the area of Bagnoli and Naples: 1. A joint vision of site reclamation to integrate the existing patterns of living and local neighbourhood.

2. From ‘Parks, not Poison’ to ‘Park and Poison’ – A Phytoremediation Approach for Land Decontamination.

The 2017 agreement on the regeneration of Bagnoli was a joint product of The Municipality of Naples, INVITALIA and Campania Region, which suggesting a collective effort on land reclamation. Taking the fact that INVITALIA is a state-owned company, it is also reasonable to predict some concrete funding. However, the scheme should continue its counter-hegemony position to foster resilient initiatives with a considerable amount of attention paying to the local communities.

It is not uncommon for the proposal of the big-scale public facility to be a powerful asset for politicians, and a park is a perfect case. In 1997, President Clinton stated that: ’We should restore contaminated urban land and building to productive use… Now, we should clean-up 500 more, so that our children grow up next to parks, not poison.’

Here in his State of the Union Address, President Clinton depicted a future of toxic-free green space by putting it opposing to the ‘Poison’, however, Peter Latz, who designed the Landscape Park DuisburgNord suggested the possibility of ‘Park and Poison’ by introducing a Phytoremediation approach (Kirkwood, 2011). Phytoremediation is an economical way to decontaminate the polluted soil relying on plants (Kirkwood, 2011). This strategy is beneficial for Bagnoli regarding budget and time-scale that will be spent on the soil-washing process that was brought up in 2017 agreement.

During the visit to the site and through online research, there are many previous inhabitants and occupiers, and some of them are essential loci of local activities (See Fig. 9). For example, the Lido Pola Restaurant took over a building abandoned 20 years ago, close to the Itasider site.

With the opposition to sailing and private speculation, it developed as a common in which self-organised activities happened to repair and reinhabit the building. Now it has become a community centre and has venues for local artists and social activists, while often hosts educational activities for children (See fig. 8). The strong solidarity was nurtured on the site, which forms a resilient initiative against land speculation and displacement. The proposed park would embrace this existing initiative and continue its function as a local community centre with part of its old structure preserved.

Fig.8. Activities in Lido Pola Restaurant https://lidopola.wordpress.com/informazioni/

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3. Professional groups and Learning activities based on the Decontamination of Bagnoli Besides the phytoremediation approach, some of the lands that were polluted from the industrial activities and the illegal disposal from Camorra needs to be analyzed and come up with professional solutions.

Inter-institutional collaborations will be encouraged among universities, laboratories and learning initiatives around the pollution subject.

Naples has been long suffering from the pollution issues brought by waste collection, management and recycling. Local mafia Camorra has been secretly burring toxic waste around the area which concerns the residents severely. There was research stating that breast cancer rates and birth defects in Naples are much higher than the national average.

These collaborations and activities will not only encourage the younger generation to learn about eco-friendly living but may help in reducing Neapolitan scandals on waste crises.

Fig. 9 Residents in Bagnoli Source:Borja Lázaro HerreroHerrero

4. Preserving Memory – An Experience that Make Time Visible Instead of building new structures or individual museums, such as the industrial archaeology museum proposed in the 2017 agreement, this proposal suggests to preserve most of the industrial relics in the initial phase and turn the whole park into an integral museum. All of the past devices and plants will be professionally preserved with pedestrian circulation designed interactively. These heritages not only reflect Bagnoli’s collective memories, and also embedded with an industrial aesthetic that forms part of the design of the park.

Exhibitions about Bagnoli’s past and its planning trajectory will be held as part of the place-making process. In the Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord, different parts of the industrial relics were adapted into sites for various activities: climbing, scuba-diving, sliders as well as theme gardens (See fig. 10). Bagnoli offers an abundant collection of industrial heritage prototypes which reinforces this concept and experience (See fig. 11).

Fig. 10. Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord https://www.latzundpartner.de/en/projekte/postindustrielle-landschaften/

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Fig. 11. Industrial Relics in Bagnoli

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Acciaieria

Centralina telex

Ciminiera AGL

Moxey

Centrale termica

Torre di spegnimento, batteria coke

Blast furnace

5. Festivals and Technologies as Catalysts Cultural Festivals will be held when the park is initially completed to attract visitors. In the later phase of the scheme, technology firms and art studios will be encouraging to occupy the old industrial structure.

6. Social Initiatives and Training

Such regeneration project may also be a crucial asset for the political statement, which may over-complicating things(Kirkwood, 2011).

However, with the waste and pollution issues in Naples which threatens the basic survival of its resident in mind, the park scheme seems to fit in both parties' interest.

Conclusion:

In response to the high unemployment rate in Naples and the existing social initiatives such as Lido Pola commune, training activities would be provided in the later phase of the scheme. The skill-oriented training will not only educate maintenance staff for the park but also skills for a wider social context.

Phasing In the 2017 joint agreement document, the scheme was divided into three sub-items including Land Reclamation and Decontamination, Infrastructure and Regeneration, among which the park project belongs to the Regeneration section and will not be completed until 2024 (see Fig. 12), after the completion of an archaeology museum on the previous Itasider site. The proposal will combine the Land Decontamination and the park project, and meanwhile prioritise it in the implementation of the whole scheme.

Although academic blamed the degradation of Naples largely on lacking a clear development plan, the problem is also embedded in having symbolic and ambitious city plan as a political tool, taking Bagnoli’s regeneration as an example. This strategic urban intervention focused on the green system that was always in the Bagnoli plans but never being implemented and developed it based on the social, economic and environmental assets and challenges in Bagnoli and Naples. It is aiming to introduce an integral plan based on the joint effort of the three bodies, namely The Municipality of Naples, INVITALIA and Campania Region. The scheme suggests that the park should be the priority in the holistic picture of the plan since it is responding to the severe waste crisis, brownfield, unemployment, etc.

Risks and Limitations The financing of brownfield regeneration is complicated and it may have multiple stakeholders. In most of the cases, the particular fund will be assigned to particular activities. This certainly requires an effective management team and possibly a public and private partnership regarding investment (Kirkwood, 2011).

Fig. 12. Phasing from the 2017 agreement

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Reference: Allum, P. (2003). The politics of town planning in post-war Naples. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 8(4), pp.500-527.

Benjamin, W. and (ed.) Demetz, P. (1978). Reflections. Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. 1st ed. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Bull,C A. (2005). Democratic Renewal, Urban Planning and Civil Society: The Regeneration of Bagnoli, Naples. South European Society and Politics, 10(3), pp.391-410.

Cento Bull, A. and Jones, B. (2006). Governance and Social Capital in Urban Regeneration: A Comparison between Bristol and Naples. Urban Studies, 43(4), pp.767-786.

Comune di Napoli (1995) Napoli: dal Centro ad oriente. Propsdta di modifica del PRG: centro storico e dona orientale. GraďŹƒti Edizioni, Napoli

ISTAT -Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (2008) Censimento della Popolazione e delle Abitazioni 2001 <www.istat.it/censimenti>

Kirkwood, N. (2011). Manufactured sites. London: Taylor and Francis.

Mazzeo, G. (2009). Naples. Cities, 26(6), pp.363-376.

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