Frediano Frediani and the Santa Lucia Skyscraper Drawing and Re-drawing an Urban Utopia.

In the panorama of 20th century architecture and the great urban transformations that marked the city of Naples between the two world wars, Frediano Frediani is one of its “minor figures”. Nevertheless, there are several works of significant architectural quality in his prolific production as a designer and consultant for large transport and infrastructure companies in Campania. It is worth merely mentioning the two stations in Piazzale Tecchio and Via Leopardi (1939/40) built for the Cumana railway in the context of his long collaboration with the EAV (Ente Autonoma Volturno) as well as the collaboration with Luigi Cosenza with the construction of the Fish Market and the Sannazzaro quarter (1929/30). However, his most utopian project remains without doubt the International Work Centre ‘Santa Lucia’ (1945/46), a magniloquent building imagined on an artificial peninsula to be built between Molo San Vincenzo and Castel dell’Ovo along the east coastline of the city. The work was never realized, but the project represents a significant and little-known episode of 20th century architectural production in Naples. The contribution proposes an analysis of the project and the vibrant debate that it generated, through an operation of re-drawing that, using the strategies of representation as a valuable critical tool, proposes an interpretation of the instances of the project and spatial thinking of a work that is presented with the force of a real ‘provocation’ in the context of post-war architecture in Italy.