Original Name: Cirio di Vigliena

Original Purpose: buildings of former Cirio factory

Date of construction: 1928

Style: Venetian-style gothic revival

Restructuring: conversion to theatre workshops

Date of restructuring: 2008

Current use: workshops, rehearsal stages, Naples’ Teatro di San Carlo admin offices

San Carlo theatre workshops in Naples are located in what used to be the Cirio industrial complex on the embankment in the eastern part of the city, namely on Via Vigliena street in the district of San Giovanni in Teduccio. It was built in 1928 to the design of civil engineer Aldo Trevisan and consists of two buildings of different heights, built in the Venetian gothic revival style with large windows and distinct vertical gothic-revival pilasters around the façade perimeter. The higher building has 5 floors, each of them approx. 7.5 m high. The lower one that constitutes part of the theatre workshops is a two-storey building approx. 15 m high. Both buildings underwent substantial transformation in the 2^nd half of the 20^th century due to newly emerging requirements on industrial production. Their structure rests on two pillars with mushroom-shaped capital caps; the spacing between supporting elements is 7 m and the roof design is based on the Vierendeel steel truss concept. The Cirio factory was operating in 1960s and 1970s as the first cannery in Europe until it closed down in the 2nd half of 1990s, after which it was systematically vandalized over more than a decade. Finally in 2008, the lower industrial hall of Cirio Vigliena was converted to San Carlo’s grandiose laboratories and workshops whereby the transformation of San Carlo’s main historical building was brought to completion. The spaces serve as production shops, scene assembly shops, storage-at-hand depots, administration offices, as well as rehearsal rooms for young musicians’ choir and orchestra.

Author: Marcela Steinbachová

Translator: Jiří Pilucha