Concrete Memory – Le Vele di Scampia

This photographic project documents the urban and social trajectory of the Vele of Scampia, one of the most controversial symbols of Italian residential architecture in the late 20th century. Through images spanning decay, abandonment, and eventual demolition, the project seeks to convey the complexity of a place too often reduced to a stereotype.
The photographs capture not only the physical decline of the Vele but also the end of a housing utopia, highlighting their historical, cultural, and symbolic value. Suspended between brutalism and institutional failure, the Vele stand as an urban scar that deserves to be remembered and understood before it is permanently erased.

I visited the Vele for the first time in September 2024, when they were still inhabited. I returned in November of the same year, after the eviction process had already begun.

Naples, Italy.