FINITE CONTENT — Napoli Porosa



Setting
The playing field is at the crossing axis of the Galleria, exactly aligned with the North-South (Cardo) and East-West (Decumanus) axis in the otherwise mostly curvilinear urban fabric of Naples.

Rules
This geometry offers dimensions for a game of 7 vs. 7. The playing field is outlined with simple black tape along the edges of the patterned pavement. 4 goals are set up. Each team attacks two goals and defends two goals along their axis.A net hanging from the roof structure, protects the facade and spectators, while creating an encapsulated atmosphere for the players on the field. 

Project Background
Building and action interpenetrate in the courtyards, arcades, and stairways. In everything they preserve the potential [Spielraum] to become a theater [Schauplatz] of new, unforeseen constellations. The definitive, the characteristic is avoided. No situation appears as if it was intended forever; no form asserts its own « just so, and not otherwise.» 1
           Benjamin and Lacis offered in 1925 the description of an all-pervading porosity of Naples. First as a portrayal of the material reality, it's volcanic stone 'tufo', the tectonic substance the city is built on and of, porosity became a concept through which to interpret the manifold conditions of Neapolitan life.
           The text can be read as the city's resistance to the fixed, holding on to latent potentials. Revealing a myriad of simultaneously animated playing stages. Whether this all encompassing term porosity is capable of describing this or not, it offers a point of departure to observe the city.
            As the kids playing football inside the Galleria Umberto I after the commerce finishes its daily business, urban space gets articulated anew. This unexpected scene in July 2019, is the cause for this proposal, an event in Neapolitan life – a football tournament in the Galleria Umberto I.
           
1 Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis, Reflections (1986)