Surface Matters explores approaches to Neapolitan ground which reflect the intensely material nature of the city. Through a collection of projects along the ridge extending from the Belvedere di Sant’Antonio a Posillipo at Mergellina where J.M.W. Turner sketched Vesuvius, to the north of Chiaia and up the west of the Quartieri Spagnoli to Parco Ventaglieri, architecture is positioned as a device through which the interplay between structure and substrata is made manifest. Developing Andrew Benjamin’s concept of the “double register” of architecture—where architecture is understood as both something which effects and affects, and something that is the effect of material concerns—it explores how the consistent material surface which unifies the city’s walls, streets, and ground is not only a surface upon, from or with which to build, but also an agent that shapes and is shaped by broader ecological and architectural conditions. Surface materials are re-conceived as Surface Matters; the materials which surface the city become (ecologically, economically, if not always structurally) precarious and contingent, unstable in a manner which extends beyond the friability of the compressed volcanic dust and ash aggregates which make up the tufo. As Surface Matters, material surfaces become things for which we must exhibit due concern .
This reconsideration of surface—recalling Benjamin’s double register—affects the architecture which is constructed above . As an invitation to exhibit concern, Surface Matters occupies several ruins within the UNESCO World Heritage site, proposing a series of architectures which serve as stewards for Naples’ historic fabric. Occupying sites in Montecalvario, Posillipo, and the Quartieri Spagnoli where the intensity of unpredictable ground movements is evident, facilities for the management of water runoff, the surveying and recording of vulnerable sites, and the preparation of replacement stones for conservation work seek to reimagine the relationship between ground and building fabric in areas where an increasing number of buildings are at risk of collapse. These monitoring sites develop a series of architectural typologies emanating from a central site at the Belvedere at Mergellina, where water is harvested, Turner’s Neapolitan paintings are exhibited, and local Greco di Tufo wines are aged and served. A series of basins, cut into, cast onto and constructed from the tuff, manage rain and surge water to relieve the pressure caused by soil erosion, and provide irrigation for planting. Above, cooling towers take advantage of the presence of the water to generate passive ventilation, aiding in reducing energy demands. At an urban scale, positioned along the ridge these cooling towers generate currents which encourage the movement of air in the city’s canopy layer, which currently acts as a barrier preventing the escape of heat and suppressing airborne pollutants. As a set of interconnected programmes for monitoring, retaining and stabilising a set of shifting ground conditions, these isolated but related architectures are understood as capable of considerable affect, and as rearticulations of the urban surfaces that they activate and by which they are activated.
