Mostra d'Oltremare
The Mostra d'Oltremare in Naples is one of the main trade fair venues in Italy and, together with the Fiera del Levante in Bari, the largest in Southern Italy. The venue covers an area of and includes buildings of considerable historical and architectural interest, as well as more modern exhibition pavilions, fountains, a tropical aquarium, gardens with a great variety of tree species and an archaeological park.
Location and connections
The exhibition is located in the neapolitan district of Fuorigrotta: the area is connected to the rest of the city through the integrated transport system, thanks to the Cumana, line 6 and line 2 of the underground, the latter housed in the inside the Campi Flegrei railway station.History
The exhibition, born as the Triennale d'Oltremare, was conceived as a "Universal Thematic Exhibition", together with the park of the Universal Exhibition of Rome, and set up in 1937, to host an event aimed at celebrating political expansion and economy of fascist Italy on the seas and in the so-called overseas lands.For this purpose, the city of Naples was chosen, which, by virtue of its central position in the Mediterranean, was considered the ideal starting point for the enterprising colonial policy of the fascist regime. The subject chosen for the first exhibition was a "Celebration of the glory of the Italian empire in North Africa and the Mediterranean".
The decision to locate the fair in the neapolitan capital was followed by lively discussions in the city on the location of the initiative: among the proposed locations, the Conca Flegrea – between Bagnoli and Fuorigrotta – was finally chosen, which due to its flat configuration, proximity to the sea and to the archaeological areas of Cuma and Averno, according to the promoters it could perform the function of tourist and commercial pole better than any other place.
In this way, the project was historically placed within the wider program for the revitalization of the city that Mussolini had enunciated under the slogan "Naples must live" and had articulated in the famous five points listed to neapolitan citizens in 1931: "agriculture, navigation, industry, crafts, tourism".
Inevitably, the construction of the exhibition influenced the entire surrounding urban environment, which, if it underwent the demolition of the ancient agricultural farmhouse of Castellana, however, saw the creation of a real business and residential center, whose fulcrum became the modern Viale Augusto, road axis with two carriageways separated by a large central flowerbed with palms and pines, a road with a slightly and imperceptibly curved course, suitable for leading up to the square at the entrance to the exhibition.
It took just sixteen months to build the entire structure. Built on over, it consisted of: 36 exhibition pavilions; an office building; an outdoor arena with a capacity of more than 10,000 people; two theaters; an Olympic swimming pool; restaurants and cafes; an amusement park, a wildlife park and a tropical aquarium; a pre-existing archaeological area of the Roman period, included within the perimeter.
The exhibition re-proposed in its architectural structure the characteristics of the overseas colonies – in a context of evident imperial propaganda of the regime – and was conceived according to the models of green architecture; in fact the complex was configured from the beginning as a picturesque environment and today it can be considered as a significant episode of coexistence of the various artistic doctrines of the time.
This colossal ornamental plant, arranged to integrate the architecture, immediately presented innovative and contradictory aspects, as it was the vast repertoire of a provisional nature that represented a significant avant-garde role, compared to real works of art, assuming a function primary homologation with the spaces of the entire complex.
Officially inaugurated on May 9, 1940, by the Hon. Vincenzo Tecchio, then president of the exhibition and in the presence of King Vittorio Emanuele III, the "I Triennial Exhibition of the Italian Overseas Lands" ended just a month later, due to the start of World War II and the subsequent bombings that hit it with 60% of the buildings suffering extensive damage. This unforeseen event determined the total closure of the area, which was left in a total state of abandonment at the end of the conflict, due to economic but also ideological reasons.
In 1948 the "Triennial Exhibition of the Italian Overseas Lands" was transformed into the "Overseas Exhibition and Italian Labor in the World body", starting the reconstruction for the reopening. This happened on June 8, 1952, when the doors of the "I Triennial Exhibition of Italian Labor in the World" opened wide; the enormous damage caused by the war had meanwhile been repaired: the buildings, destroyed or half-destroyed, had been restored or rebuilt, the pre-existing ornamental cycle had been suitably restored and enriched, as well as the immense tree park.
The new function of the fair organization was initially identified in that of organizing documentary exhibitions on Italian activities and work in the world, as well as in pursuing purposes suitable for the promotion and economic and tourist enhancement of the city. The economic failure of the event caused an aggravation of the already very precarious financial situation, which was irreparably compromised and caused the cancellation of all the projects undertaken.
The exhibition was closed again, if not for some spaces and some periods; this gave rise, especially starting from the sixties, to a long and inexorable process of dispossession and decay, characterized by the partial and improper use of many structures, by the neglect of the green areas and, in particular, by the damage caused by occupation of the land on which the displaced people of the 1980 earthquake were arbitrarily settled, with no respect for the work, under the banner of a widespread condition of decay, which reached its peak in the early nineties.
Current and future
From January 1999, the core exhibition complex, an integral part of the historical-artistic heritage of the city, was able to rise to new life. In 2001 the organization became "Mostra d'Oltremare Spa", a new management company, owned by the Municipality of Naples, the Campania Region, the Province of Naples and the Naples Chamber of Commerce, and started a significant program of redevelopment and enhancement, combined with an economic-business development project.The entire exhibition area has undergone a major renovation that brought it back to the level of an exhibition center of national and international interest and now the arrangement of the new Parco della cultura e del tempo libero is about to be completed, which, next to the Archaeological Park, the Congress Park and the exhibition Park, it will represent one of the four areas, the newest and most innovative one, in which the exhibition will be divided in the future.
More and more open to citizens, as well as to visitors, the exhibition will see two modern hotels and other structures built inside it that will allow the public to stay there and be able to enjoy the exhibition area and the numerous monuments of contemporary architecture, including the 'Arena Flegrea – where numerous festivals take place – the Mediterranean Theater, the Olympic Swimming Pool and the majestic Fountain of the Esedra.
Since 2003 it has been the permanent venue of the international Pizzafest event.
Since 2010 it is the seat of the annual fair dedicated to comics and animation Napoli Comicon.
In 2019 it hosted the media center and the press office of the XXX Universiade, as well as some sporting events. Diving competitions were held at the Fritz Dennerlein pool, while halls 3 and 6 hosted shooting and judo competitions, respectively.
Pavilions and other architectural elements
The exhibition park is one of the most valuable architectural complexes of pre-war and post-war Italian Rationalism. The planimetric simplicity of the detailed plan of the area, designed by Marcello Canino in 1938, contrasts with the contemporary EUR by Marcello Piacentini. The latter is characterized by the monumental thrust desired by the regime. The exhibition is set up on a plan that recalls the hippodamus system of the consolidated city through three axes that act as decumani and connected by axes that replace the hinges and at the end of them there is a pavilion that breaks the linearity of the paths. This design attitude of the plant by Canino shows that Naples, despite the neo-eclectic upsurge, has nevertheless absorbed the theoretical lesson of the Modern Movement, declining it to its geographical situation. The complex was heavily damaged during the Second World War and between the 1940s and 1950s it was restored using almost all the same designers who participated in 1938. Further damage occurred after the 1980 earthquake when most of the exhibition spaces were destined to host the displaced, on this occasion of emergency some pavilions representative of the modern neapolitan were demolished such as the botanical greenhouses of Carlo Cocchia and the Flegrean arena, demolished in the late 1980s and rebuilt again by Giulio De Luca after the impossibility of recovering the damaged arena of 1938.The Pavilion of the Italian Aegean Islands was designed in 1938 by the Roman architect Giovanni Battista Ceas for the Geographical section of the Mostra d'Oltremare to celebrate the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese archipelago in May 1912.