Here beauty and innovation match together in the daily places, frequented by millions of people every year.
Usually when you take the subway and it is crowded you expect efficiency only, but in Naples everything is different. The Toledo subway station welcomes you with an incredible blue navy and its illumination is made of lights which seem to dance as in the ocean bottom.
Imagine a big cone of light piercing the earth, transforming a simple trip into an art experience. If you are looking for an authentic experience be ready because this is not a simple station. It is a global icon which has been awarded as the most beautiful one in Europe. Yes it is italian set in the beating heart of Naples.
Opened in September 2012, Toledo station is a part of the Naples subway Line 1. The Spanish architect Oscar Tusquets Blanca and his Catalan team projected a space which evokes the Gulf of Naples. The walls are covered by mosaics made of several chromatic blue shades and are a masterpiece by William Kentridge. The ceiling above the ticket office is the work art named:” The south passage”, made by Bob Wilson which is a game of lights and shades.
The best of this station is the:” The light's crater”. An elliptical light cone 14 m high connecting the street level and underground thanks to which the natural light reaches a depth of 40 m. This sunlight filters from above creating a hypnotic seabed effect.
This station is a part of a wider and ambitious project named” The art stations”, born in the 90s with the purpose of making the subway a widespread contemporary art museum. This project involves international architects and artists such as Achille Ceccarelli who made other mosaics and Michelangelo Pistoletto for other artistic installations. On the Neapolitan subway official web site is written:” Here the art is not a decoration but brings the urban daily space to life”.
The awards speak for themselves. The Daily Telegraph elected the station as the most beautiful of Europe. It has been included by CNN in the most spectacular top 10 subway of the world. Also the Guardian and the Lonely Planet laud this:”Abyss of light” which makes the commute as a sensory experience.