In the garden of Palazzo Salerno at Piazza Plebiscito in Naples (home of the Southern Operational Forces Command) our client installed several backlit sculptural commemorative lecterns. The material chosen was again the weathered Corten Steel, as was the background sculpture of the marble stele, also produced in Corten Steel about three years ago. The latter was installed in the atrium of the building and frames the marble stele at the “southern military region command”. A numerically controlled oath is engraved on the corten sculpture, visible even at night because it is backlit. At the side, there is a ladder that meets the flag pole embedded in the ground. The background floor is also in Corten with slots for installing flowerbeds.

The lecterns were installed directly in the garden with a plug-in system. The removable wiring system illuminates the perforated lettering. The engraving is: on the left “the garden of the military righteous” while on the right there is the name of the fallen. The shape of the lectern is a hybrid with the shape of the butterfly, to recall the fallen soldier who soars in flight to a better life.

The production process starts from the analysis of the sketches, the renderings and the interpretation of the aesthetic sense of the lectern / butterfly idea. A suitable graphic font is studied and chosen for the cuts to be made with the cnc machines. Only now the technical office starts with the engineering of the several corten metal components to be sent to production. The corten steel sheets are cut with numerical control fiber laser cutting machine, they are press-bent and then assembled by welding.

Once the lecterns are completed, we move on to degreasing and finishing their surfaces, now ready to be oxidized. For more than 30 days the lecterns were wet and dried to accelerate the natural oxidation / rusting process. Once the chosen shade was reached, the lecterns were passivated and then wired with LED strip lights.