Anish Kapoor Unveils A Bold New Naples Subway Station Entrance

While Anish Kapoor’s early, ethereal pigment sculptures are on view at the Jewish Museum in New York City through February 1, a substantial, more-lasting creation of his has bowed in Naples, Italy: Monte Sant’Angelo Subway Station. Although the artist has completed permanent public installations in other cities (Cloud Gate in Chicago, ArcelorMittal Orbit in London), this is his first transportation commission—and his first with a function. It’s “a sculpture you enter,” Kapoor said in 2003, when he received the invitation from city officials, “I loathe making anything practical.” Lucky for us and the hundreds of students, Rione Traiano residents, and visitors taking the train each day, that dislike didn’t stop him.

Working with architecture studios Future Systems and AL_A, Monte Sant’Angelo has two entrances: one defined by a sunken, tubular aluminum form, the other, on the University of Naples Federico II campus, by a swelling aboveground ellipse in weathering steel that morphs into an inverted funnel. “The idea was to turn the tunnel inside out, like a sock,” adds Kapoor, who notes Mount Vesuvius and Dante’s mythical entrance to the Inferno as inspirations. He joins Karim Rashid, Álvaro Siza, and Benedetta Tagliabue, who are among those involved in a wider urban regeneration scheme called Stazioni dell’ Arte, bringing art, architecture, and archaeology to some 20 stops throughout the city.