geografie luoghi spazi città

– the actual risk of “consuming” a strategic public space in the heart of the historic city, exclusively
for private speculative purposes (the cushy job, according to the initial quote) to provide the upper
middle class with the next luxury lodging;
– the significant environmental impact of the project, which involves the soil sealing of an area of
4.865 square meters of sea and beach (according to the Official Report by the Attorney General’s
office) and the diversion of the fresh water stream Fusandola, already responsible for disastrous
floods in the past (and burdened by three environmental restrictions);
– the lack of territorial coherence and the strong impact on the landscape of the opera: “a great
wall”, out of context and out of scale, that with its 33 meters height turns its back to the historic
town, obstructs the view of the sea and impoverishes the urban landscape and the skyline;
– the exorbitant cost foreseen for the implementation of the project (38 million euro, of which 14
million allocated from European funds and 24 million charged to the Municipality via a mortgage
at the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti), related to the purchase of the area from Demanio (10 million), to
the emoluments paid to the archistar Bofill and especially the gigantism of the square and its engineering
complexity (9);
– the top-down approach used by the local government and its complete closure to democratic dialogue,
as well as a lack of transparency (and legitimacy) in the procedures adopted.
The actions put in place to fight the project are basically of two types: information campaigns and
legal action. As for the first, they use different channels: the web, the press, and other mass media (Troisi,
2013), the organization and participation in conferences and cultural debates. The arguments against the
project are exhibited in some specific dossiers (networked), meant to prove in a technically impeccable
language, the limits and the distortions buried in the policy choices made by the Administration. As part
of the campaign a movie (posted on the web) is also produced, aimed at raising public awareness.
Also due to the key role played by Italia Nostra, the movement manages to bring the problem to national
attention, as evidenced by the interest in the subject by newspapers and television stations nationwide.
The battle against the eco-monster also gets the support of associations and environmental movements,
such as “Legambiente”, “Stop al consumo di suolo” (Stop land take) and “Salviamo il paesaggio”
(Save the landscape).
Several scholars, planners and intellectuals, take a public stand against the project, and in an open
letter to the Minister of Culture Franceschini define the project “a speculative intervention of enormous
proportions, that, subdued to the logic of profit goods and peculiarities that should never submit
to it, has already led to serious damage to protected heritage” (10). The same Bohigas “father” of the
Salerno renewal program defines the works designed by his compatriot for waterfront (the Crescent in
Santa Teresa area and the Vela in Concordia Square) unsuitable and inappropriate for Salerno (see his
interview in El Pais reported in Corriere della Sera, September 9, 2010). Even fiercest the critics raised
by Fausto Martino, a former Deputy Councilor responsible for town planning:
A wrong project – wrong from an urbanistic point of view […]. A sun-drenched area, completely empty, defined
– so to speak – from the sky, the sea and the immense Crescent: the hypertrophied, cemetery crescent shaped
building […], luxury cement for the VIPs, repetitive concave-convex barrier that turns its back – its ass, if I may
say – to the Verdi Theatre and the historic center, obscure the twentieth-century facades […]. It denies the city,
subtracts the sea, steals the established image of the Amalfi Coast. A surreal “non-place”, the project, a huge metaphor
for the grandeur of the Mayor (Corriere del Mezzogiorno, 18 March 2009; our translation).
At the same time a tough legal battle is carried out: in five years (between 2009 and 2014) over
thirty official petitions to the Judicial Authority have been submitted by the NoCrescent Committee
(9) In 2011 the Municipality is forced to adopt a project variant of about 8 million euro, which will not prevent two years later the
partial collapse of the square.
(10) The letter, signed by 50 intellectuals, is available on the website of Italia nostra (Salerno Section).
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