Augusteo

Augusteo in Naples began in 1928, when workers demolished the noble Palazzo Berio to build a piazzetta able to swallow the crowds a new funicular was about to dump onto via Toledo. The guide follows how that afterthought also gave a theatre a new home, and how a thirty-five-year-old engineer, Pier Luigi Nervi, spanned its hall with ribs of reinforced concrete radiating like an umbrella. It traces the venue's history, including Josephine Baker dancing on its stage, through wartime closure and a 1990s restoration that revived the sound and retractable roof. Stand in the square today and watch the crowd rising from the funicular below.