Un laboratorio sperimentale della modernità. L’ampliamento del Pontificio Santuario di Pompei paradigma della superflua architettura del Novecento

The modern Pompeii was built at the beginning of 20th century on intuition of the lawyer Bartolo Longo, who planned not only the building of a church, but even a “town of hospitality”; from 1876 and for about 60 years, a tiny and dreary chapel was transformed in one of the sacred architectural episodes more representative of the 20th century in Europe. The church was opened in 1891 and then slightly enlarged (with a dome), while the actual façade, then over-dimensioned with respect to the church, was completed in 1901. From 1912 to 1925 an independent bell-tower was added. The reinforced concrete (r.c.) enlargement (1933-1939) described here is a case of great historical and structural interest for several reasons. The small masonry church (one nave, 420 m2, 18 m high), was in fact transformed in a much larger one (three aisles, 2000 m2, 45 m high), with a new crypt and a new and much higher dome, preserving at the same time the old nave (only sligthly lengthened) and its decorations, as a sort of testimony of the original identity. In a three-dimensional environment as this, built around the Icon of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, the enlargement decided around 1930 had necessarily to be three-dimensional too (i.e. both in plan and elevation), to guarantee to all faithful people the same perspective look toward the main altar and the feeling of being in the very same (although enlarged) place. This was made possible by means of the r.c. technology, then at the beginning of his history, whose potentiality were accepted only provided that the new structural elements (columns, beams, vaults) were systematically masked with plasters and other decorations, according to the idea – typical of that time – that the concrete were not acceptable from a formal point of view for religious buildings.