Today, Friday, February 2, work officially began on the demolition of the buildings in the 'Bronx' of San Giovanni a Teduccio, a suburb east of Naples. In particular, the first premises to be demolished will be car garages, depots and sheds.
It is well known that the demolition - which will also involve the removal of the four iconic murals by Jorit - has sparked numerous criticisms and oppositions.
One of the reasons is that the two works by the Neapolitan artist have given the area a new light and a strong cultural enhancement to the neighborhood, attracting, among other things, numerous tourists. The removal, therefore, is seen as a real loss for San Giovanni a Teduccio and for the entire city.
For this reason, a discussion table has been opened to make Taverna del Ferro a neighborhood destined to welcome new forms of public art to be fully included in the urban regeneration project.
This is the idea of the mayor Gaetano Manfredi after meeting with the artist Jorit for the preservation of the Maradona mural, an essential part not only of the iconography of Taverna del Ferro, but significant for the entire city. The table is part of the participatory process already implemented by the Municipality and which has seen the involvement of the inhabitants, both in the demolition phase of the current mural (on the Vesuvius side stick), which will take place at the end of the construction site (2027), and in the phase of creation of a new work dedicated to Maradona in the new neighborhood. The direct involvement of residents is, in fact, a priority for the mayor Gaetano Manfredi and for the Urban Planning Councilor Laura Lieto, who have always placed the needs of the territory and its inhabitants at the center of the entire project.
The decision to demolish the two sticks comes from a careful and thorough evaluation related to structural and energy reasons, as well as from the fruitful and constructive confrontation with the inhabitants of the neighborhood, who have strongly demanded the demolition of the two large structures in favor of an alternative neighborhood model, with contained spaces and neighborhood units suitable for residents.
The choice to preserve the Maradona mural on site is technically complicated and economically expensive, as the work is made on a non-plastered wall and to preserve it, it would be necessary to give up the construction of 40 houses provided by the redevelopment project. The idea is therefore to study the dismantling of the current wall and the reconstruction of the new work dedicated to Maradona always in the neighborhood but in a different place.
Given the great symbolic value that the mural brings with it, the idea is to build around the icon of Maradona an artistic cycle of collective rebirth, with the aim of fully meeting the need of citizens to finally access the new residences, and to refound the imaginary of Taverna del Ferro strengthening the bond with the figure of a footballer symbol for Naples.
For these reasons, the mayor has committed to involve Jorit in the new artistic project of San Giovanni a Teduccio, collecting his availability to find feasible solutions in the interest of the urban regeneration process of the neighborhood.