The Cloister
The Cloister's history
Fondazione Made in Cloister is based in the small cloister of the Church of Santa Caterina a Formiello, one of the most important Neapolitan Renaissance churches, part of the monumental complex of the same name.
In the 19th century, the complex was requisitioned from the monks by Giaocchino Murat and later transformed by Ferdinando di Borbone into a factory for the production of wool and military uniforms. From that moment on, the Cloister and the area, later named Lanificio, changed its use: from a place of worship to a factory, coming to employ - at full capacity - over four hundred workers, making it one of the virtuous examples of the industrial development program in the Mezzogiorno.
In the central part of the small cloister a marvellous wooden truss was built for drying wool, of exceptional layout and dimensions, which still today gives the space a unique character between Renaissance architecture and 19th-century industrial archaeology.
In 1861, with the Unification of Italy and the advent of the Casa Savoia, orders of uniforms for the army were suspended and the wool mill - unable to diversify - quickly went bankrupt.
Rapidly, what had been, at first, one of the most important monuments of Renaissance art and then a virtuous industrial settlement, became a ‘disused’ area and began a progressive and inexorable degradation that involved the entire district.
The restoration and reconversion
Over the years, the small cloister was split up into different properties, which with multiple abuses used the space for a variety of activities (parking area, carpentry, storage), modifying both its spatiality and destination.
This degraded condition was the starting point for the long restoration and reconversion project by Fondazione Made in Cloister, which restored its 19th-century spatiality, eliminating all the abuses, to transform it into an exhibition and performance centre open to the city.
The Borbone wooden dryer, at the centre of the space, has become the beating heart of the Foundation's activities and the symbol of the project.
The restoration of the frescoes still partially present along the walls of the cloister porticos was carried out by the Accademia di Belle Arti of Naples and the students of the restoration class, who brought to light some scenes narrating the story of St. Caterina d'Alessandria, to whom the adjacent church is dedicated.
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