Book 'Contro il panorama' challenges clichés of Naples

Journalist and urban policy scholar Lucia Tozzi and photographer Giovanna Silva have published 'Napoli. Contro il panorama' (Nottetempo, Rome 2022), a 144-page volume that counters the picturesque stereotypes of Naples—Posillipo, the sea, Vesuvius—by documenting the city's post-war urbanization through the 20th century. Tozzi's text and Silva's photographs, often taken with a phone, present a normalized vision of neighborhoods like Monteruscello in Pozzuoli (designed by Agostino Renna, 1984-1987), Taverna del Ferro in San Giovanni a Teduccio, and the INA-Casa district in Agnano, showing them as similar to working-class suburbs elsewhere. The book also recalls the closure of Piazza Plebiscito and Piazza Dante to traffic and the construction of metro stations with architects like Mendini and Gae Aulenti, though it omits the role of former mayor Riccardo Marone, a key figure in integrating contemporary art with urban development alongside Antonio Bassolino.