It never stops collecting awards, citations, honorable mentions; and it never stops seducing streams of passersby and travelers. The Toledo station of the Naples Metro, designed by Catalan architect Oscar Tusquets and opened in 2012 along Line 1, is one of the most beautiful in the world. The most beautiful in Europe, according to the British newspaper Daily Telegraph and also according to an authoritative CNN ranking.
And if in 2013 it was awarded the Emirates Leaf International Award as "Public building of the year," today came a new important recognition: in Hagerbach, a town near Zurich, it was awarded the ITA – International Tunnelling Association, or the Oscar of underground works, for the category "Innovative use of space." Beating out the cities of Jerusalem and Sidney.
The merits recognized concern the innovative technologies used in the excavation phases, but above all the idea behind the architectural project: "Toledo Station is a unique example of a decentralized museum," writes the ITA association, "which offers a dynamic fruition of artists’ creations, giving citizens the opportunity to travel along an open artistic itinerary." The spectacular set design conceived in shades of blue, black and ochre-the sea, the earth and the tuff-discloses references to the local landscape and architecture, proceeding by different levels of immersion and playing with light refraction thanks to the various mosaic interventions: from the large blue surfaces, entrusted to the micro tiles of the Bisazza company, to William Kentridge’s mosaics, with references to Mediterranean myths, Vesuvius, and Neapolitan iconography. Perfectly integrated light boxes with lenticular panels by Bob Wilson, in which the waves of the sea come alive.
