Cagliari, Bonaria Staircase

The staircase runs from the Bonaria churchyard to Viale Diaz below and was planned even before the Second World War to fix the space in front of the Basilica.
The staircase was born from a competition launched in 1960 and won by the Roman architects Adriano and Lucio Cambellotti. Originally, the project had to include spaces up to Viale Colombo and the sea (on Siccu) in a single solution. Started between 1962 and 1963, the staircase was opened to the public in 1967, after several interruptions.
The staircase, long and articulated, has no precise axis, instead resorting to a balance of masses rather than symmetries, so much so that the climb allows the progressive discovery of the façade of the basilica, up to the Marian column that recalls the miraculous event (1370) of the arrival from the sea of the wooden box containing the statue of the venerated Madonna of Bonaria, however stylistically later.
The material is a concrete of cement conglomerate and shards of Sardinian stone (granite and limestone), which envelops the staircase, creating spaces for rest and passage, up to a climax that dominates the early Christian “arcosolium” burials, found during the work.
On the other hand, the nymphaeum was never completed, with cascading water, never built due to the complexity of the hydraulic system and now filled with soil and vegetation.

Bibliography
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 158.