Architecture, narration, and the art of living

Tsiambaos, Kostas. "Architecture, narration, and the art of living" FAM, 45/46 (2018), p. 154-166.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1283/fam/issn2039-0491/n45/46-2018/201

Text with images:
http://www.famagazine.it/index.php/famagazine/article/view/201/852

Introduction

This paper draws from the idea of philosophy as a “life art” - as discussed by philosopher Alexander Nehamas in his book The Art of Living[1] - in order to highlight a hidden connection between architecture, as a creative practice, and the narration of the creation of the self. The life art approach to philosophy has a long history; initiated in “ἑαυτοῦ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι” (the care of the self) encountered in the early Platonic texts, it was then transformed into the pursuit for the perfect “blend of life and theory” in Aristotle, and was later promoted by modern thinkers such as Montaigne, Nietzsche and Foucault as the cultivation of an “aesthetic dimension of life”. Friedrich Nietzsche in particular, one of Le Corbusier’s intellectual heroes, only considered artistic creation in its dynamic as a story of self-creation and not as an expression of a transcendent representation.

Through a short, imaginary story I will argue that the value and impact of every architectural creation cannot always be inherently defined since no ‘recipe’ for great architecture exists for someone to follow, precisely because every exemplary architectural creation is always constructed on the scaffolding of a personal biography. Likewise, if every influential architectural work is based on the architect’s biography, then the creative potential of architecture cannot but be intertwined with the question of a narrative of the self. In other words, architecture’s value, impact and command are related to the creation of the architect as a person as much as, if not more than, architectural creation itself. The following fantastic narration, which is however based on actual persons and events, is offered as such an example.

Jeannerex

Our story begins somewhere around 1890, at the office of the famous Professor of Beaux-Arts Georges. One day, Georges receives an anonymous letter (Fig. 1). He opens it and reads horribly: “Eclecticism is doomed to die by the hand of a young boy who will someday create a new kind of architecture.” Immediately, and without a second thought, he decides to take action. He orders one of his best students, Auguste, to find the boy and make him ‘disappear’ (Fig. 2). Auguste actually finds the young boy but hesitating to hurt him, he guides him to a remote cliff on the Jura Mountains. He ties and abandons the boy there, hoping for someone to find and save him (Fig. 3). Fortunately Charles, a local artist, finds the boy in the middle of nowhere and decides to grow him up like his own son. “I will teach him all I know”, he thinks. “I will make him a painter, a decorator, or an architect.” (Fig. 4). After a while he even gives him a name. “I will call him Jeannerex!”

As Jeannerex grows up, he is increasingly interested in architecture. At some point, however, he realizes that all that he had read in the books of architecture was not the only truth. That is why, full of curiosity, he decides to travel to Delphi in order to find out what real architecture is (Fig. 5). Arriving in Delphi, he is looking for an oracle. But the oracle he receives does not answer his question (Fig. 6). It instead tells him that he is meant to attack the architecture of the past and create his own architecture. Rather disappointed Jeannerex decides to leave his unanswered queries aside and travel further away...

Approaching the city of Athens while on the boat, he sees a hill from afar (Fig. 7). Something odd is over there. He knows it, he had seen it before in the books, but from here it looks unfamiliar, uncanny. He has to walk up there.

Without wasting time, he decides to reach the Acropolis. The view of the rock up close is rather disturbing, if not shocking. The Parthenon is white and shiny, its marbles look bright and frozen. Jeannerex stands against the temple, unable to move forward, fixed by the spectacle. “So this is reality... this is the only truth!” He thinks. He has to do something... he has to react before it is too late. He will either fight or crash!

The battle is tough and without a clear winner (Fig. 8). Jeannerex defends himself but he gets hurt, loosing his left eye. The Parthenon is powerful but its identity is now revealed. Its image is altered, its story is rewritten (Fig. 9).

Hurt and exhausted, Jeannerex decides to leave Delphi and return home. On his way back, however, he meets the Sphinx, which stops the passers-by and puts them in a puzzle (Fig. 10): “Before its birth it is inside us. After its birth we are inside it. What is it?” Jeannerex stands silent, thinking for a while and then he answers: “It is architecture! Before being built it is within us, as an idea, but when built, we can enter it, inhabit it.” The Sphinx replies: “Yes, that’s the correct answer.”

Arriving in Paris, Jeannerex is certain that he wants to become an architect (Fig. 11). On his desk, his gaze pulls a small book. On its cover he reads: “Who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful.” He looks out the window. Behind the glass, he imagines a new name for himself.... As time passes, he begins to talk, write, draw, construct something that has not appeared ever before. It is a new architecture. The architecture of Jeannerex or, after his new name, the architecture of El Corbusier! (Fig. 12).

*

That was my little fantastic story, in which, however, one could recognize, in a fragmented and random order, some real facts, persons and events from Le Corbusier’s life. One could recognize, for example, Auguste Perret, at whose office the young Jeanneret worked for 14 months in 1908-1909, and Charles l’Éplattenier, Jeanneret’s first teacher at the Ecole d’Art of La Chaux-de-Fonds from 1900 to 1904. One could also recognize the places where the architect toured and traveled; from the mountains of Jura, where his was unwillingly hiking together with his father, Georges, to Delphi, the Athenian Acropolis and, of course, Paris the modern city that marked the start of a new life and the creation of a new name (the name Le Corbusier) by the young Jeanneret himself.[2]
 
As equally real is the rupture with the academic eclecticism of the Beaux-Arts, which was symbolically introduced at the beginning of our story. The ‘struggle’ against the Parthenon can be also recognized as a central theme of Le Corbusier’s creative life as this has been described in a dramatic way by the architect himself as well as by most historians-researchers of his early life, ideas and works. Finally, Le Corbusier’s partial blindness from the left eye was another fact although this was not something that took place on the Athenian Acropolis in 1911 but an event that took place in 1918, the night when the architect was completing his painting titled La Cheminée; a purist painting on which Jeanneret abstractly illustrated the Parthenon, as he himself had written.[3]

All of the above, real or fantastic ingredients were reconstructed on the scaffolding of a very well known ancient myth, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, which seemed to fit. And it is true that it did not take much effort to link the biography of Le Corbusier with the myth of Oedipus. But I will discuss more on this connection a bit later.

The person before the architect

We are discussing emblematic architects, such as Le Corbusier, through their work, a seminal project, a work of reference that has the power to enrich over time and in multiple ways the work of other architects or students of architecture. This influence of important architectural works can be immediate and obvious - to a degree of a direct copy of the form itself - or indirect as a more general reference to conceptual ideas, design practices or construction techniques. This indirect influence is considered the only legitimate, since the formal reproduction of an architectural work seems to be totally meaningless. Indeed, it is not difficult to agree that if, supposedly, a contemporary architect could accurately reconstruct, again today, ten of the most important works of the 20th century he would not be a great architect even if all of the pure architectural qualities (geometry, composition, layout, scale, construction, materials, details) were exactly the same. This may sound obvious but it is at the same time a paradox since it tells us that: a. The criteria of great architecture cannot be only architectural and b. A great architect is not just one who makes great architecture. Let’s just keep this paradox in mind for the time being.[4]

We are also talking about the work of an architect through his biography. Such a person is Le Corbusier about whom it seems that we know everything: where and how he grew up, who were his family and how good or bad were the relationships with his father, his mother and his brother, who were his teachers, where did he work and who did he worked with, where did he travel and what exactly he did during his journeys, what did he write or think, what did he paint or sketch, what letters did he send and to whom, which were his relationships with women and of what kind, how did he spend his summers, what did he like to eat, how did he like to sleep, what did he love and what did he hate.[5]

This special interest, by architects, on the biography of another architect is also explained by something else: by an established - although not always obvious - belief that the narration of a creative person’s biography can tell us something important about his work. There is somewhere, under the surface, a mentality that relates the uniqueness of the work to the uniqueness of the person; a certain logic according to which the architectural work would not have been as important if the life of the architect was not as interesting. And this logic becomes more provocative and challenging the moment we realize that many important architects, including Le Corbusier, did not attend a School of Architecture, did not even have the degree of an Architect, but emerged as great architects only through an impressive and unique course of self-creation; a course that included diverse influences, readings, apprenticeships, travels, friendships etc. etc. As Le Corbusier himself had once said: “I am self-taught in everything, even in sports”.[6]

This epic aura surrounding the project of self-creation is a shared characteristic among the ‘heroes’ of modern architecture. Beyond common values, priorities and concepts, every important architectural work is recognized as unique precisely because the path followed by its creator could only be his own and no one else’s. Here we are no longer talking about the project-as-a-model but about the biography-as-a-model. The thing is that if repeating the first one (the work) seems unlikely, resembling the second (the person) is impossible. Biographies, by definition, cannot be repeated. How can one become as great as his heroes then?

Philosopher Alexander Nehamas discusses how the idea of philosophy as an art of life (what is called “the philosophical life”) lasts over the work of great modern and contemporary thinkers such as Montaigne, Nietzsche and Foucault.[7] This idea started with the “care of the self” (ἑαυτοῦ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι)[8], which we encounter in the early Platonic texts as a knowledge of the soul,[9] and then into the ideal mix of life and theory in Aristotle as a reflective desire,[10] until the great thinkers of modernity. The difference is that the latter are gradually downgrading the regulatory or incentive framework of “living well” (εὖ ζῆν) keeping the debate about self-care as an art that neither follows an exact method nor obeys strict rules.

In this perspective it is accepted that a virtuous human life cannot be defined in advance since there is not a common, optimal life-standard for all. Thus, even if ancient societies could agree on common ethical frameworks and typical patterns of life - and to a certain extent impose them - in modernity, on the contrary, people are describing and following an aesthetic dimension of life based on a narration of their biography as the analogy of an artistic creation.[11] And in art, even if there are some standard or universal models and values, the criteria for what is beautiful, successful, good, new, correct, unique, important etc. etc. are becoming much more free, unstable and open.

Furthermore Nehamas, using the example of platonic Socrates, implies that things were open from the very start and never clearly defined.[12] He also emphasizes that just as in art, success is directly related to self-care since originality, authenticity, uniqueness etc. are concepts that are related only within the framework of a strictly personal course. That is why, when we talk about art, the theoretical ‘recipe’ does not pre-exist but it is always determined afterwards.

In order to relate the above to our case, we would say that the concern for an architect’s biography is justified to the extent that it can describe, in retrospect, some kind of theory. While the criteria of great architecture are not written somewhere in order for someone to read and follow, narrating the life of an important person comes to justify the unquestionable value and success of his extraordinary work.

What is interesting in Le Corbusier’s case is that the man himself stated this link between his life and his work from the very start. The ways in which he dramatized events in his life, told his experiences, recorded documents, published opinions, justified his choices, rewrote his story etc. all these defined a re-construction of his own life, a “technology of the self”, to quote Michel Foucault.[13] That's why many historians and theorists have written about how, in Le Corbusier’s case, this parallel construction of his life and his work was entirely conscious and targeted.

As a matter of fact, the famous architect never did he hide his ‘secret’ from the young architects who would like to follow a similar path. In his well-known booklet titled Entretien one reads:

One day, some young students from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris asked me to open a studio. I declined their request. “Well then, give us some words of advice” [...] Some years have passed. With great insistence, some students of the Beaux-Arts once again appealed to me to start a Corbusier workshop. “Thank you, dear young friends, but I must say no. What should I teach? A philosophy of life?”[14]

The “philosophy of life”. That was the only lesson in architecture that Le Corbusier could teach. But could he really teach this lesson? And what exactly were to teach? Can the philosophy of life be taught? Le Corbusier was rather doubtful and left the question floating unanswered. However, he insisted. He criticized any kind of teaching that was supposed to guide architectural creation but had still not managed to approach its essential core. And it had not accomplished it because it had not realized what was the original creation that preceded every other creation:

Teaching in this country has hardly inspired you to devote yourselves to the creative struggle or to the constant battle with yourselves.[15] This is how we get back to the self-care, the construction of the self, the Corbusian “philosophy of life” that was identified as a “constant battle”, as a “creative struggle” with oneself. It is in this struggle, that young architects should focus before they - and in order to - become creative architects. In addition, Le Corbusier had defined early enough architecture as a “pure creation of the mind”, setting the mind as the foundation of architecture that desires to become Art.[16] But what did that mean and why was this accessible only to those who had succeeded in winning the battle with themselves?

Nehamas would tell us not to look for something more tangible because, anyway, when we talk about the art of living and the care of the self, there is no recipe. And he would also remind us that a person like Socrates could be a reference, even if neither he nor anyone else could describe the pattern of (his) good life. Who would expect, anyway, that someone like Socrates who had started his career from architecture (his actual profession was a stonemason)[17] would end up being a great philosopher?

Wie man wird, was man ist[18]

It is well known that the myth of Oedipus existed long before Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, already since the Homeric Era. And, of course, it continued its course in history, through various readings, interpretations and variations: the Oedipus by Aristotle, Ovid, Seneca, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Cocteau, Pasolini, Ricoeur and many, many others. In my narration, which I presented at the beginning, one meets again all the basic motifs of the myth to the extent that an indirect identification with Le Corbusier's biography seems easy.

Another variation of the myth, Corbusian this time, is legitimate at the moment we isolate the common reference to self-care, to the delphic “know thyrself”, and we read the myth as the analogous of a “promenade architecturale”,[19] as an evolutionary journey of self-knowledge.[20] Having this in mind, as well as the reconstruction of Oedipus myth by Sigmund Freud,[21] we may argue that in the case of Jeannerex the conflict with the father had its analogue to the conflict with the established architectural history while the desire to union with the mother was transformed - following the psychoanalytical process of sublimation - in a new (modern) architecture both as an artistic activity as well as an intellectual search. As for his blindness, this had happened already during a real, psychic, battle against the Parthenon, the reverent ‘father’ of western architecture. And, as in Sophocles, here too, the ignorance of truth can be complete even if the eyes are open, while the knowledge can be terrifying even if the eyes do not see.[22]

According to one of Le Corbusier’s intellectual heroes, Friedrich Nietzsche, the model of the creative person was clearly the artistic genius.[23] The artists were really creative personalities, the most important ones[24] or, conversely, only truly great personalities could become great artists.[25] Jeannerex’s narration becomes thus instructive while at the same time it remains inaccessible; instructive because it offers an example to imitate but inaccessible because the example it offers (the narration of the person’s life) is an example impossible for someone to copy.

At the same time narration is used as a means to transcend the objective foundations and limits of architectural creation in order to further establish a social distinction; a distinction (in Bourdieuan terms) between the architects and the Architect. Recent films about the life and work of important figures such as Louis Kahn, Rem Koolhaas and Bjarke Ingels are nothing but contemporary efforts to narrate a unique biography and at the same time rhetorical constructions used in the framework of a persuasion strategy.[26] Although there is always a certain tendency to present their architects-protagonists as normal persons with typical human inclinations, fixations, or passions, these narrative documentaries cannot but communicate the message of their architect’s uniqueness. In fact, the more ‘normal’ these architect-professionals seem the more distanced, as architects-models, become since it is impossible for someone to explain how or why someone who is ‘just-one-of-us’ can, at the same time, stand out as someone unusual, famous and exceptional.[27]

This is, in short, the moral of all these narratives: the person actually matters more than the project. Architecture’s value, impact and command are related to the creation of the architect as a person as much as - if not more than - architectural creation itself. That is why the creative project is always built on the scaffolding of an exemplary life; exemplary not in a moral sense but in the aesthetic sense of the care for the self. But what does this exactly mean, this is something that each and every one of us will have to find out on his own.

Investigating the uses of narration in relation to the architect’s personal biography allows for a critical stance towards architecture’s foundation, identity and context. This is the only way for us to solve the paradoxical enigma: if you want to become like me do not try to imitate me.

Notes

[1] Nehamas, Alexander. The Art of Living, Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.

[2] The change of the name is indicative as the first step towards the construction of a (new) self. For an interpretative approach to the micro-history of Le Corbusier's Voyage d' Orient see: Tsiambaos, Kostas. “Après l’écrasement: d’Eleusis à Delphes” in L’invention d'un architecte. Le voyage en Orient de Le Corbusier, Paris: Fondation Le Corbusier-Éditions de la Villette, 2013, pp. 340-351.

[3] I am referring to the painting titled La Cheminée. See: Iuliano, Marco. “Montage d’Orient” in L’invention d'un architecte, op.cit. pp. 414-423.

[4] On the question of authenticity in works of art see: Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art, an Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968, pp. 99-123.

[5] See: Baker, Geoffrey H.. Le Corbusier, the Creative Search: The Formative Years of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, London: E & F N Spon, 1996, Brooks, H. Allen. Le Corbusier’s Formative Years, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997, von Moos, S. and Rüegg, Arthur (eds.). Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002, and Richards, Simon. Le Corbusier and the Concept of Self. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.

[6] Le Corbusier. Entretien avec les étudiants des écoles d’architecture. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1943.

[7] Nehamas, op.cit.

[8] Φέρε δή, τί ἐστιν τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι - μὴ πολλάκις λάθωμεν οὐχ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἐπιμελούμενοι, οἰόμενοι δέ - καὶ πότ´ ἄρα αὐτὸ ποιεῖ ἅνθρωπος; Ἆρ´ ὅταν τῶν αὑτοῦ ἐπιμελῆται, τότε καὶ αὑτοῦ; Plato. Alcibiades A', 128a.

[9] Ψυχὴν ἄρα ἡμᾶς κελεύει γνωρίσαι ὁ ἐπιτάττων γνῶναι ἑαυτόν. Plato. Alcibiades A', 130e.

[10] For Aristotle living-well is related to a reflective gaze on life, a constant asking about its meaning. See: Hughes, Gerard J.. The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. London: Routledge, 2013.

[11] “On the Philosophical Life, An Interview with Alexander Nehamas”. The Harvard Review of Philosophy, vol. VIII, 2000, p. 32.

[12] Ibid., p. 24.

[13] Martin, L. H., Gutman, H. and P. H. Hutton (eds.). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.

[14] In Le Corbusier’s Entretien. I am using the 1961 English translation by Pierre Chase as published in Le Corbusier Talks with Students, from the schools of architecture. New York: Princeton University Press, 1999, p. 4.

[15] Ibid., p. 16.

[16] For Aristotle whether someone is a good architect is determined by the kind of houses he builds. But the point of the good life just is the living of it. In Gerard, op.cit., p. 120.

[17] Socrates followed the profession of his father, Sofroniskos, according to Porphyry but also according to Diogenes Laertios. Pausanias even conveyed to us that in Propylaea there was a marble relief, which Socrates had said to have been made. “You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty” (quoted in Plato’s Republic, Book 7).

[18] From Friedrich Nietzsche’s last book titled Ecce Homo, Wie man wird, was man ist.

[19] As in Le Corbusier’s promenade architecturale.

[20] See: Segal, Charles. Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge. New York: Twayne Publishers (Macmillan), 1993 and Dawe, R. D.. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

[21] The phrase: ὃς τὰ κλείν᾽ αἰνίγματ᾽ ᾔδει καὶ κράτιστος ἦν ἀνήρ (Who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful) from Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex was written in Sigmund Freud’s ex libris according to Ernest Jones. The design of this ex libris stamp, depicting Oedipus against the Sphinx, was designed for Freud by the Viennesse Bertold Löffler in 1901. See: Pichler, Gerd. “Bertold Löffler's Bookplate for Sigmund Freud”. Psychoanalysis and History, vol. 12, issue 1, January 2010, pp. 7-14.

[22] Le Corbusier’s phrase “Des yeux qui ne voient pas” descibes a similar, Oedipean mechanism: eyes wide open can be also blind when they cannot ‘see’ (understand) the ‘real’ architecture.

[23] One of young Jeanneret’s favorite books was an edition of Ansi parlait Zarathoustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) translated by Henri Albert. See: Brooks, op.cit., p. 174.

[24] Leiter, Brian. Nietzsche and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, chapter 9.

[25] This admiration for artists and all those elements who can express through their art can be found, similarly, in Freud.

[26] I am thinking of Nathaniel Kahn’s My Architect (2003), Tomas Koolhaas’s Rem (2016), and Kaspar Astrup Schröder’s Big Time (2017). The fact that some of these films were directed by the sons of the famous architects sets an undoubtedly Oedipean (albeit unresolved?) framework.

[27] Such a postmodern narration usually avoids a critical view on the evolution and promotion of the protagonist as a internationally recognized professional. At the same time the typical representations of a ‘hero’ or a ‘genius’ cannot but keep emerging. It is characteristic that in the recent film Big Time, the narration of Bjarke Ingels’s life and work follows such a typical heroic-Oedipean structure: a. the first years (his family / Bjarke as a child) b. the challenge - threat (going to the US / threatening headaches) c. the victory (success at the US / overcoming the health problem) d. the woman - marriage (he finally finds his significant other / he will make his own family).

Bibliografia 

ARMSTRONG R. (2009) – “Oedipus as Evidence: The Theatrical Background to Freud's Oedipus Complex”. PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts (December).
http://www.psyartjournal.com/article/show/armstrong-oedipus_as_evidence_the_theatrical_backg
[last accessed 29 July 2015].

BAKER G. H. (1996) – Le Corbusier, the Creative Search: The Formative Years of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Van Nostrand Reinhold - E & F N Spon, New York - London.

BROOKS A. H. (1997) – Le Corbusier's Formative Years, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

HUGHES G. J. (2013) – The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Routledge, London.

LE CORBUSIER (1999) – Le Corbusier Talks with Students, from the Schools of Architecture, Princeton University Press, New York.

LEITER B. (2007) – Nietzsche and Morality, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

MARTIN L. H., GUTMAN H., HUTTON P. H. (1988) – Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press.

NEHAMAS A. (1998) – The Art of Living, Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault, University of California Press, Los Angeles.

PICHLER G. (2010) – “Bertold Löffler’s Bookplate for Sigmund Freud”. Psychoanalysis and History, 12/1 (January).

RICHARDS S. (2003) – Le Corbusier and the Concept of Self, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.

SEGAL C. (1993) – Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge, Twayne Publishers, New York.

TSIAMBAOS K. (2013) – “Après l’écrasement: d’Eleusis à Delphes”. In L’invention d’un architecte. Le voyage en Orient de Le Corbusier, Fondation Le Corbusier - Éditions de la Villette, Paris.

VON MOOS S., RÜEGG A. (2002) – Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.

The Future as a Project - the book

Amygdalou K., Tsiambaos, K., Kritikos, C. G. (eds.). The Future as a Project: Doxiadis in Skopje. Athens: Hellenic Institute of Architecture, 2018.

Contents

7
Address by the Project Manager of ‘Athens 2018 World Book Capital’

8
Foreword

The earthquake

11
The days after: Skopje’s first steps towards reconstruction
Christos-Georgios Kritikos

The Skopje Urban Plan Project and Doxiadis Associates

40
The protagonists of Skopje’s reconstruction
Ines Tolic

50
Designing on a moving terrain: Doxiadis Associates and the reconstruction of Skopje
Kostas Tsiambaos

The City Center and Post-earthquake Architecture

90
The City That Could Have Been
Vlatko P. Korobar

100
The architecture of the post-earth quake renewal of Skopje
Ana Ivanovska Deskova, Jovan Ivanovski, Vladimir Deskov

128
Between utopia and pragmatism: A synoptic overview of architectural modernism in socialist Yugoslavia
Maroje Mrduljaš

142
The white swan: the foundations of the Museum of Contemporary Art
Zoran Petrovski

The Legacy and Adventures of Skopje’s Modern Heritage

151
‘Skopje 2014’ and the Return of History
Kalliopi Amygdalou

169
Biographical notes

The Future as a Project I Doxiadis in Skopje

Τη Δευτέρα 17 Δεκεμβρίου 2018 στις 20.00 εγκαινιάζεται η έκθεση
ΜΕΛΛΟΝ ΥΠΟ ΚΑΤΑΣΚΕΥΗ | Ο ΔΟΞΙΑΔΗΣ ΣΤΑ ΣΚΟΠΙΑ
Στο πλαίσιο της διοργάνωσης ‘Αθήνα 2018 Παγκόσμια Πρωτεύουσα Βιβλίου’ του δήμου Αθηναίων

Πενήντα πέντε χρόνια μετά το σεισμό του 1963 που κατεδάφισε το 80% της πόλης των Σκοπίων, η συνεισφορά του Κωνσταντίνου A. Δοξιάδη στον επανασχεδιασμό της πόλης είναι ακόμα σε μεγάλο βαθμό άγνωστη. Αντίστοιχα στο περιθώριο παραμένει η ιστορία των κτηρίων που τελικώς σχημάτισαν το νέο αστικό τοπίο των Σκοπίων, μετά από την ανάθεση του σχεδιασμού του κέντρου της πόλης στο γραφείο του Ιάπωνα αρχιτέκτονα Kenzo Tange. Σήμερα, εξαιρετικά δείγματα των ρευμάτων του μεταβολισμού και του μπρουταλισμού υποφέρουν από δεκαετίες εγκατάλειψης και απαξίωσης.

Η έκθεση Μέλλον υπό Κατασκευή | Ο Δοξιάδης στα Σκόπια η οποία εγκαινιάζεται τη Δευτέρα 17 Δεκεμβρίου στις 20.00 στο Μουσείο Μπενάκη / Πειραιώς 138 παρουσιάζει για πρώτη φορά το εντυπωσιακό έργο του Δοξιάδη στα Σκόπια, το οποίο περιλαμβάνει λεπτομερείς καταγραφές των ζημιών από το σεισμό, σχεδιαστικές στρατηγικές και ένα νέο πολεοδομικό σχέδιο για την πόλη. Ταυτόχρονα, παρουσιάζει στο ελληνικό κοινό το έργο του Kenzo Tange για το κέντρο των Σκοπίων, καθώς και μία σειρά από κτήρια σημαντικών Γιουγκοσλάβων αρχιτεκτόνων που στέκονται ακόμα και σήμερα στο κέντρο της πόλης.

Στο πλαίσιο της έκθεσης θα πραγματοποιηθεί στο Μουσείο Μπενάκη / Πειραιώς 138 την ημέρα των εγκαινίων σχετική ημερίδα (15.00 - 19.30, στα αγγλικά) με διεθνείς προσκεκλημένους επιστήμονες και ελεύθερη είσοδο για το κοινό. Την Τρίτη 18 Δεκεμβρίου στις 18.00 θα πραγματοποιηθεί στρογγυλή τράπεζα και παρουσίαση του καταλόγου της έκθεσης (στα ελληνικά, απαιτείται κράτηση). Θα προηγηθούν δύο δωρεάν ξεναγήσεις από την ομάδα επιμέλειας στην έκθεση (17.00-18.00 / απαιτείται κράτηση).

Επιμελητές: Καλλιόπη Αμυγδάλου, Ana Ivanovska Deskova, Jovan Ivanovski, Vladimir Deskov, Κώστας Τσιαμπάος
Βοηθός Επιμελητής: Χρήστος Κρητικός

Διάρκεια έκθεσης: 20 Δεκεμβρίου 2018 – 17 Φεβρουαρίου 2019

Η έκθεση και οι σχετικές εκδηλώσεις συνδιοργανώνονται από το Ελληνικό Ινστιτούτο Αρχιτεκτονικής, το Museum of the City of Skopje και το Μουσείο Μπενάκη / The Benaki Museum σε συνεργασία και με τη στήριξη της διοργάνωσης «Αθήνα 2018-Παγκόσμια Πρωτεύουσα Βιβλίου» του δήμου Αθηναίων, μέγας δωρητής της οποίας είναι το Ίδρυμα Σταύρος Νιάρχος, και πραγματοποιούνται και με την οικονομική υποστήριξη του Υπουργείου Πολιτισμού και Αθλητισμού. Το υλικό της έκθεσης προέρχεται κυρίως από το Αρχείο του Κωνσταντίνου Α. Δοξιάδη του Ιδρύματος Κωνσταντίνου και Εμμάς Δοξιάδη και την ιδιωτική συλλογή των Jovan Ivanovski, Ana Ivanovska Deskova και Vladimir Deskov.

______________________________

The exhibition
THE FUTURE AS A PROJECT | DOXIADIS IN SKOPJE
opens on Monday, December 17th at 20.00
within the framework of Athens 2018 World Book Capital – City of Athens

Fifty-five years after the 1963 earthquake that demolished 80% of the city of Skopje, the contribution of Constantinos A. Doxiadis in the redesign of the city is still largely unknown. Meanwhile, the history of the modernist buildings that dotted the new cityscape, after Kenzo Tange’s office took on the task of redesigning the city centre, remains unappreciated. Many excellent examples of metabolism and brutalism have been suffering from decades of neglect.

The Future as a Project | Doxiadis in Skopje, opening on Monday 17 December at 20.00 at The Benaki Museum / Pireos 138, presents for the first time Doxiadis’s work in Skopje, which includes a detailed survey of the affected areas, strategic plans for the city and a new outline for the master plan. In addition, it introduces to the Greek public the work of Kenzo Tange for Skopje’s city centre, and showcases a series of modernist buildings authored by leading Yugoslavian architects that still stand in the city today.

Within the framework of the exhibition a 1-day international conference will take place at the Benaki Museum / Pireos 138 on the opening day (15.00-19.30, in English, free entrance). On Tuesday 18 December, a roundtable will take place at 18.00 (RSVP required), in Greek, and will include a presentation of the catalogue. Two free guided tours of the exhibition will also be carried out by the curatorial team right before the discussion (17.00-18.00, RSVP required).

Curators: Kalliopi Amygdalou, Ana Ivanovska Deskova, Jovan Ivanovski, Vladimir Deskov, Kostas Tsiambaos
Assistant Curator: Christos Kritikos

Exhibition Duration: 20 December 2018 – 17 February 2019

The exhibition and its accompanying events are organised by the Hellenic Institute of Architecture, the Museum of the city of Skopje and the Benaki Museum, co-organized and supported by ‘Athens 2018 - World Book Capital’ by the City of Athens (of which major donor is Stavros Niarchos Foundation), with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. The exhibition material has been contributed mainly by the C. A. Doxiadis Archives of the Constantinos and Emma Doxiadis Foundation and the personal collection of Jovan Ivanovski, Ana Ivanovska Deskova and Vladimir Deskov.

Ekistics/Οικιστική. Η οικιστική κληρονομιά: αποτυπώματα και προοπτικές.

Έχει περάσει μισός αιώνας από την έκδοση του βιβλίου του Κωνσταντίνου Δοξιάδη Οικιστική, η επιστήμη των οικισμών και αντίστοιχο διάστημα συνεχούς έκδοσης του διεθνούς επιστημονικού περιοδικού Ekistics/Οικιστική που ίδρυσε ο ίδιος, και του οποίου αρχισυντάκτης και επιμελητής ήταν για περισσότερα από τριάντα χρόνια ο Παναγής Ψωμόπουλος. Οι ιδέες που διατυπώθηκαν από τον Δοξιάδη και το Ekistics είναι οργανικό μέρος της επιστήμης και της παιδείας του σχεδιασμού του κτισμένου χώρου, από την κλίμακα της αρχιτεκτονικής της γειτονιάς μέχρι την κλίμακα μητρόπολης, της μεγαλούπολης ή των περιφερειακών δικτύων και υποδομών που υποστηρίζουν την ανάπτυξη ευρύτερων οικιστικών και πολεοδομικών συστημάτων. Η συζήτηση για την οικιστική αναπτύχθηκε με ένα οικουμενικό προσανατολισμό, αφομοιώνοντας ιδέες που γεννήθηκαν στο πλαίσιο διαφορετικών χωρών και παραδόσεων σκέψης ή επαγγελματικής πρακτικής. Είναι ωστόσο αναμφίβολο ότι αυτή η συζήτηση είχε ταυτόχρονα βαθιές ρίζες στην Αθήνα και τη διαχρονική ελληνική εμπειρία των πόλεων· ως οργάνωσης του χώρου, ως πολιτισμού, ως κοινωνικής σχέσης και κοινωνικής δυναμικής.

Η εκδήλωση θα δώσει την ευκαιρία να αποτιμηθεί η κληρονομιά που άφησαν στην ελληνική και διεθνή επιστημονική κοινότητα οι Κωσταντίνος Δοξιάδης, Παναγής Ψωμόπουλος, Γιάννης Παπαϊωάννου και όλοι όσοι σφράγισαν την ελληνική συνεισφορά στον διάλογο για την οικιστική. Θα δώσει παράλληλα την ευκαιρία να αποτιμηθεί η κληρονομιά του περιοδικού Οικιστική, που λειτούργησε ως σταθερό πεδίο αναφοράς για αυτό το διάλογο. Στόχος είναι να αναζητηθούν οι μελλοντικές προοπτικές της οικιστικής, από την σκοπιά των νεότερων γενεών Ελλήνων αρχιτεκτόνων που καταπιάνονται με αυτά τα ζητήματα. Με αυτόν το τρόπο θυμόμαστε και τιμούμε τον Παναγή Ψωμόπουλο που χάσαμε πρόσφατα, το 2017, αλλά και τον Κωνσταντίνο Δοξιάδη που έφυγε το 1975.

Ο κάναβος και ο λαβύρινθος

Τσιαμπάος, Κώστας. "Ο κάναβος και ο λαβύρινθος". Κείμενο στον κατάλογο της 9ης Μπιενάλε νέων Ελλήνων αρχιτεκτόνων του ΕΙΑ, 2018, σ. 20-21.

Το 1998 η 2η Biennale νέων Ελλήνων αρχιτεκτόνων είχε ως θέμα της τη σχέση αρχιτεκτονικής και πόλης και επιχειρούσε να περιγράψει, ή και να προβλέψει, τη νέα αστική συνθήκη στη μετάβαση από τον 20ό στον 21ο αιώνα. Τα έργα που παρουσιάστηκαν ανήκαν σαφώς σε μια εποχή η οποία ήθελε να ξεπεράσει τη μεταμοντέρνα κλασικιστική ή νέο-παραδοσιακή εικονογραφία των δεκαετιών του ’80 του ’90 και να υιοθετήσει μια αφαιρετική, ‘ψυχρή’, πραγματιστική έκφραση.[1] Κατασκευές μικρής ή μεγάλης κλίμακας, έδιναν έμφαση στις καθαρά προγραμματικές τους ιδιότητες σε μια προσπάθεια να ανταποκριθούν στις σύνθετες δυναμικές μιας παγκοσμιοποίησης τόσο ελκυστικής όσο και επιθετικής.

Σήμερα, 20 χρόνια μετά, όλα μοιάζουν να είναι αλλιώς. Τα χρόνια που μεσολάβησαν (τα μισά σχεδόν σε συνθήκες κρίσης) κάνουν τη συζήτηση του 1998 να μοιάζει άτοπη. Όχι επειδή τα όσα απασχολούσαν τους τότε επιμελητές ή συμμετέχοντες δεν είναι και σήμερα πραγματικά, επίκαιρα ή έγκυρα. Αλλά γιατί η τότε προτεινόμενη στρατηγική και η τότε διαφαινόμενη δυναμική έχουν σήμερα ακυρωθεί. Αν η έμφαση των αρχιτεκτόνων του 1998 σε μια προγραμματική, επιτελεστική (performative) διάσταση της αρχιτεκτονικής υπονοούσε την ανασύνταξη της πολιτικής μετά το «τέλος της ιστορίας», στη στάση των αρχιτεκτόνων του 2018 είναι εμφανής η αμηχανία ή η αδιαφορία τους να προτείνουν ακριβείς τακτικές και κατευθύνσεις.[2]

Θα μπορούσα να πω σχηματικά ότι στη θέση του κανάβου - εκείνης δηλαδή της μετασχεδιαστικής αρχιτεκτονικής ‘σκακιέρας’ πάνω στην οποία αναπτύσσονταν η επιτελική «κίνηση του ιππότη» (Tafuri)[3] - τοποθετήθηκε ένας λαβύρινθος χωρίς εμφανή έξοδο. Για την ακρίβεια, είναι οι ίδιες οι γραμμές του κανάβου που έχουν τώρα μπλεχτεί μεταξύ τους από τις διαδοχικές, σπασμωδικές κινήσεις του «ιππότη» οι οποίες μοιάζουν πια άσκοπες.

Σε αυτό το πλαίσιο οι συμμετοχές της 9ης Biennale τις οποίες ξεχώρισα δεν έχουν εκείνη την συνάφεια και ομοιογένεια που μπορεί να είχαν κάποτε. Και αυτό δεν συνέβη μόνο επειδή απουσίαζε η δέσμευση πάνω σε μια σαφή θεματική αλλά επειδή οι σημερινές συνθήκες είναι, ούτως ή άλλως, διαφορετικές. Το μαξιμαλιστικό φουτουριστικό ‘πάρκο’ των Tsolakis Architects στη Γκάνα και το μινιμαλιστικό πρωτόγονο ‘καλύβι’ της Εύας Σοπέογλου στη Χαλκιδική περιγράφουν, ίσως, τους δύο αντιδιαμετρικούς πόλους της σημερινής κατάστασης. Ένας τρίτος πόλος θα μπορούσε να είναι η ευφάνταστη δουλειά του γραφείου 314 Architecture Studio από το οποίο όμως θα περιμένουμε να ολοκληρώσει κι άλλα χτισμένα έργα πριν βγουν πιο στέρεα συμπεράσματα.

Σίγουρα οι περισσότερες από τις συμμετοχές αφορούν προτάσεις οι οποίες έχουν σαφείς σχεδιαστικές ή/και κατασκευαστικές αρετές και υιοθετούν σύγχρονες τεχνικές επικοινωνίας χωρίς να έχουν ιδιαίτερες φιλοδοξίες κριτικής στάσης, θεωρητικής οπτικής ή σχεδιαστικής καινοτομίας. Πρόκειται για μελέτες τις οποίες χαρακτηρίζει η συνθετική καθαρότητα ή η εκφραστικότητα της κεντρικής ιδέας, η εύστοχη ανάλυση των δεδομένων ή η μελετημένη ένταξη στο περιβάλλον, η συνομιλία με τις διεθνείς αρχιτεκτονικές τάσεις ή η συνέχιση μιας σχεδιαστικής παράδοσης. Έργα, υλοποιημένα ή μη, τα οποία ακολουθούν μια στέρεη, καλά δουλεμένη ρητορική, ικανή να σταθεί με αξιώσεις σε διεθνές επίπεδο όπως φαίνεται και από τις διακρίσεις σε διεθνείς αρχιτεκτονικούς διαγωνισμούς και την αναγνώριση από διεθνή αρχιτεκτονικά websites.

Ως δύο περιπτώσεις αναφοράς, με κλασικούς αρχιτεκτονικούς όρους, θα ξεχώριζα τις συμμετοχές των Vois Architects και των Tense Architecture Network. Πατώντας, με διαφορετικό τρόπο η κάθε ομάδα, πάνω σε μια φαινομενολογική παράδοση η οποία ξεκινά από το “genius loci” του Norberg-Schulz[4] και φτάνει στο “attunement” του ύστερου Pérez-Gómez[5] πείθουν απόλυτα για τη αρτιότητα, την ακρίβεια και την αποτελεσματικότητά τους, από την αρχική ιδέα μέχρι την κατασκευαστική λεπτομέρεια. Οι Tense προχωρούν σαφώς ένα βήμα παραπάνω συνθέτοντας την τολμηρή όσο και σίγουρη εξπρεσιονιστική γραφή τους με έναν λόγο στοχαστικό ο οποίος ενδυναμώνει τη σχεδιαστική αυτονομία.

Σημαντική θεωρώ και τη δραστηριότητα των αρχιτεκτόνων στα δημόσια έργα σε μια εποχή όπου οι συνθήκες είναι πολύ δύσκολες και όχι μόνο για λόγους οικονομικούς. H πλατεία Νίκης στην Κοζάνη των 406 Architects, η πλατεία Εμπορίου στις Σέρρες των PANK ή το δημοτικό ωδείο της Γλυφάδας των Καραλή - Μπαμπανέλου, αποτελούν χαρακτηριστικά παραδείγματα. Ενδιαφέρον έχουν όμως και ιδιωτικά έργα τα οποία διαχέουν πρότυπα ‘υψηλής’ αρχιτεκτονικής σε γεωγραφικές περιοχές οι οποίες μοιάζουν ‘περιφερειακές’. Η κατοικία στο Καματερό των LKMK ή η κατοικία στην Κατερίνη της Μανιάτη προβάλλουν μια προ κρίσης αρχιτεκτονική εικόνα, την οποία μάλλον είχαμε συνηθίσει να βλέπουμε αλλού, και την εδραιώνουν ως επιθυμητό σύμβολο σύγχρονης κατοίκησης για ένα νέο κοινό.

Θα αναφέρω, τέλος, δύο γραφεία που ξεχώρισα γιατί ήταν από τα ελάχιστα, αν όχι τα μόνα, που προσπάθησαν να αρθρώσουν έναν θεωρητικό λόγο ο οποίος να πλαισιώνει και να υποστηρίζει τον σχεδιασμό. Από τη μία η ομάδα Παπαλαμπρόπουλος - Συριοπούλου ακολουθεί μια εσωτερική - ‘ησυχαστική’ προσέγγιση: στη μελέτη τους Συμβίωσις δεν κρύβουν την πρόθεσή τους να σχολιάσουν ένα τυπικό θεσμικό και χωρικό μοντέλο μέσα από την αναθεώρησή του σε μια εναλλακτική, σχεδόν ουτοπική, σχέση κτηριακού συγκροτήματος και πόλης. Εδώ οι post-digital αναπαραστάσεις δεν περιορίζονται σε μια ρηχή, αυτάρεσκη εικονολογία αλλά καλλιεργούν την απαραίτητη κριτική απόσταση βαδίζοντας στην παράδοση των Superstudio και των Archizoom. Από την άλλη η Κιούρτη υιοθετεί μια ακτιβιστική - διδακτική στάση: το κατάστημα ρούχων της Πάτρας αποδομείται (κυριολεκτικά και μεταφορικά) για να ξαναφτιαχτεί από τα ‘ερείπιά’ του ενώ το ξενοδοχείο στον Όθο της Καρπάθου ‘σπάει’ σε κομματάκια, ‘ρέει’ και ‘αποκρύπτεται’ μέσα στον οικισμό. Δύο λιτά, αιχμηρά μανιφέστα που μας μιλούν αφενός για τη σχέση αρχιτεκτονικής και οικονομικής κρίσης και αφετέρου για τη βιώσιμη, τουριστική ανάπτυξη ως συμφιλίωση με τον τόπο και την ιστορία.

Τα παραπάνω αναστοχαστικά έργα δηλώνουν και μια σαφή πρόθεση να αναβαθμιστεί ξανά η θεωρία ως προγραμματική βάση του σχεδιασμού έτσι ώστε να περιοριστεί η άσκοπη κίνηση μέσα στον λαβύρινθο και το μπέρδεμα του μίτου της σύγχρονης ελληνικής αρχιτεκτονικής. Γιατί ένα τέτοιο μπέρδεμα φανερώνουν, κατά τη γνώμη μου, οι δεκάδες νέες κατοικίες στα νησιά του Αιγαίου τις οποίες κληθήκαμε να αξιολογήσουμε: λευκά αρχέτυπα που θέλουν να φαίνονται ‘αθώα’ χωρίς όμως να είναι× ευαίσθητες ‘χειρονομίες’ ελεύθερου χρόνου που όμως ‘τραυματίζουν’, άθελά τους, το τοπίο× λιτές δημιουργίες ευ ζην που όμως αντλούν την αξία τους από ένα περιβάλλον που καλύτερα θα ήταν να παραμείνει άκτιστο…

Μια επιχείρηση ανακατασκευής του κανάβου σήμερα δεν θα ήταν μια απλή υπόθεση. Δυο άξονες οι οποίοι τέμνονται κάθετα δεν είναι πλέον κάτι το αυτονόητο.

Αναμένουμε από τον «ιππότη» της σκακιέρας να ανασυντάξει τις δυνάμεις του.[6]

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[1] Για μια γενική επισκόπηση του πραγματισμού ως ένα μεταθεωρητικό ρεύμα και τη σχέση του με τη σύγχρονη αρχιτεκτονική βλ. Joan Ockman (επιμ.). The Pragmatist Imagination: Thinking about “Things in the Making”. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001 και William S. Saunders (επιμ.). The New Architectural Pragmatism: Α Harvard design magazine reader. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
[2] Αντίστοιχα, η ανάδειξη του «νομαδισμού» των Deleuze και Guattari από την 3η Biennale του 2001 στην κύρια θεωρητική αναφορά μοιάζει σήμερα εξίσου παράδοξη και μακρινή, υπερβολικά ιστορικά προσδιορισμένη. Παρ’ όλα αυτά διακρίνει κανείς καθαρά σε αυτήν την ‘εμμονή’ την προσδοκία να υιοθετηθεί μια εναλλακτική επιχειρησιακή- σχεδιαστική τακτική.
[3] Manfredo Tafuri. The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1987 [1980], σ. 8 και 16. Ο Tafuri αναφέρεται σε μια μεταφορά του Ρώσου κριτικού Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) σε σχέση με την αντίδραση της μοντέρνας πρωτοπορίας απέναντι στο πραγματικό.
[4] Christian Norberg-Schulz. Genius Loci, Το πνεύμα του τόπου: Για μια φαινομενολογία της αρχιτεκτονικής. Αθήνα: Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις ΕΜΠ, 2009 [1979].
[5] Alberto Pérez-Gómez. Attunement: Architectural Meaning After the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2016.
[6] “The parameters proper to a history of the laws that permit the existence of any architecture must thus be called upon - like the threads of Ariadne - to unravel the intricate and labyrinthine paths traveled by Utopia, in order to project, on a rectilinear grid, the “knight's move” institutionalized by poetic language”. Tafuri, όπ.π., σ. 16.

Pikionis' unattainable wish / www.engramma.it

Pikionis’ unattainable wish

The dream-thoughts we can understand without further trouble the moment we have ascertained them. The dream-content is, as it were, presented in hieroglyphics, whose symbols must be translated, one by one, into the language of the dream-thoughts.

Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

Any effort to approach Dimitris Pikionis is tantamount to the effort to decipher a myth. The theoretical engagement with his texts soon leaves multiple questions unanswered as the myth surrounding him creates a distance that discourages research and hinders access (Kotionis 1998). Respectively, his work is as original and unique as it is distant and personal and cannot be easily categorized into stylistic genres or historical movements running the risk of remaining virtually unknown as to its sources, its philosophical background, the theory that generates it. However, if Pikionis seems ‘exotic’, obscure or distant, this is because he is usually disconnected from his natural space, his historical context and the broader intellectual pursuits of his time (Condaratos 1989).

A rough collection of Pikionis’ diverse citations, as found in his texts, would surprise us: Plato, Saint John Climacus, Coleridge, Ruskin, Goethe, Nietzsche, Bergson, Schelling, Schiller, Guadet, Cezanne, Rodin, Klee, Spengler, Chestov, De Chirico (Santoro 2008, Santoro 2018), Tagore, Sikelianos (Tsiambaos 2018b), Pascal, Montaigne, Rousseau, Voltaire, Jung, Shakespeare, Dickens, Tennyson, Blake, Chateaubriand... These figures, along with many others, coexist in Pikionis’ talks (Philippides 2009) and manuscripts, communicate with each other and cross paths unexpectedly, forming a vast body of multivalent influences. On the other hand, the fact that Pikionis often appears to express himself through various Platonic, Nietzschean or Bergsonian terms and concepts does not mean that he was necessarily interested in these philosophies themselves. What attracted him was the ability to move through all these intellectual schemes, in order to become familiar with them, to appropriate them, so that he can ultimately formulate a personal discourse, his own ‘viewpoint’.

As a resident in Munich and Paris in the early twentieth century, Pikionis circulated in an environment where the afore-mentioned ideas were diffused. It was in Germany where Pikionis visited Hans von Marées, Fiedler’s close friend and follower. Through this acquaintance, Pikionis appropriated the concept of intuition in which he recognized a form of Aristotelian catharsis, where the dramatic spectacle, through vision, ‘touches’ and ‘purifies’ the soul of the viewer. It was within this cultural landscape that Pikionis, like many other architects and artists of his generation, moved and collected pieces from different sources. Neoplatonism, romanticism, existentialism, vitalism, anthroposophism, mysticism etc. were contained retrospectively in his own worldview; a worldview that could intellectually link Plato to Nietzsche, Indian philosophy to Einstein's theories, sacred geometry to biology, the human body to the movement of the planets, the physical world to the evolution of civilization, History to Utopia, the past to the future (Tsiambaos 2018a).

In the landscaping of the area around Philopappos Hill (1954-58) - “the most important, the most original and at the same time the most Greek monument created by our era” according to Pikionis’ much-loved student Constantinos Doxiadis (Doxiadis 1968) - we can see the most advanced use of optics as a design tool. In this, the most famous of Pikionis’ works, a well-balanced system of optical alignments based on the system ‘discovered’ in 1936 by Doxiadis (Tsiambaos 2018a) links the old and new buildings with Nature (the rocks, the trees, the sea, the mountains) and History (the Pnyx, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the Acropolis). On a continuous path, vantage points are carefully chosen from where all the above are organized within the visual field. Before one enters the church courtyard, they pass beneath a wooden ‘Japanese’ gate which aims to highlight the transition from one world to another, an entrance to a space of symbolic images, hidden messages and secret meanings. In front of the gate, the floor is organized according to a fine-tuned system of optical alignments and attracts one’s gaze towards the different structures in the space through optical-geometric relationships (Papageorgiou-Venetas 2010).

Around the church of St. Demetrius, the number of symbolic images increases and the visual impressions become richer and denser. The old church was extended, clothed entirely in a new symbolic ‘garment’ on which disparate forms of a single continuous tradition come together. It was not only the pieces of ruined neoclassical houses, the stone and ceramic fragments of the Attic land, that were embedded in the floors and walls: the wall becomes a field where objects, elements, and figures from Ancient, Christian and Modern Greek history and mythology coexist: urns, Kouroi, horses, ancient Greek deities, Christian saints, wooden boats, archaic gates, eagles, deer, rosettes, spirals, coils, meanders, warriors of antiquity and heroes of the Greek Revolution of 1821, medusas, trees, fish, flowers and plants, lions, and ancient temple façades… As long as one can decipher what they see the walls of the church ‘speak’, narrating mythical incidents and activating the historical memory.

If one passes by the church on foot, they will find a wide footpath ahead of them (Ferlenga 2014). This footpath will lead them up a slight uphill slope to the top of the hill. The route culminates in a broad plateau, a belvedere. Up there one sees a few marble benches and small stone structures freely positioned. Scattered in the belvedere and distanced from one another, all the benches face in the same direction, as if a distant magnet is drawing them to it. It is clear that this magnet is the Acropolis where all the benches are directed towards, ‘viewing’ it. All the benches position the visitor at points from where the view of the Acropolis is the best possible, points from where the image is the ideal. With the exemption of the two above-mentioned areas, the rest of the route around the hill was not designed according to Doxiadis’ theory and the system of optical alignments, but according to Pikionis’ “principle of subordination to nature”. Of course, the original and detailed construction of the paved streets required a “careful visual inspection” and for the work to take its final form a “creative improvisation of the human eye” was needed. In this case, we have an improvised composition onsite. The structural composition and harmony of this complex mosaic of stones, marble and ceramic spolia and concrete pieces was inspected visually. Here, too, thorough supervision, careful and continuous participation of the eye at each stage of the works, was essential. Therefore, vision did not only pre-exist as a synthetic tool in order to define the general design guidelines, but also reappeared on the worksite to confirm and evaluate or approve the construction details. In any case, the architect’s gaze was not passive but followed the creative process from the beginning to the end, from the general layout to the smallest detail. The gaze was ‘spread’ far away but also narrowly focused; it could reach the open horizon but also ‘caress’ the small stones (Pikionis 1999, 75):

But on this particular day what pleases me most is to concentrate on the spectacle of the ground bathed in calm, wintry light [...] I stoop and pick up a stone. I caress it with my eyes, with my fingers.

The ground as a spectacle and the touching of the stone with the fingers and the eyes express both an aesthetic and at the same time moral inclination towards nature and the world. The aesthetic and the moral were, of course, connected, since according to Pikionis: “Kant's teaching that our inclination towards the beautiful has roots which lie close to all our moral inclinations” (Pikionis 1994, vol VII, 130). This Kantian perspective establishes an interesting framework for reading the relationship between Pikionis’ architecture and nature and metaphysics as part of an idealization process. In each one of Pikionis’ projects there was always a constant reference to an ideal image, from the very first sketches to the supervision of the final construction. The design always referred to an ideal, platonic image that pre-existed and is ‘re-discovered’ each time, again and again. This constant and repeated quest for the ideal image was the result of idealization because without this constant ideal reference nothing could be created (Pollock 2006).

In the construction of St. Demetrius, for example, the covering of the original façade with a new one representing the ideal form, is indicative of the above thought. The new ‘clothing’ of the building attained the ideal and its new form was nothing if not an expression of this ideal. This idealization certainly became particularly violent once the new façade clashed with the existing building. The original medieval church was not preserved in its original state but it expanded (tripled in size) and has been covered with a new façade. The original St. Demetrius, or whatever was left over the centuries as an authentic historical body of archaeological value, ‘disappeared’. It is clear that Pikionis was not interested in the actual structure itself, the conservation of an objective historicity, the living physical evidence of the past. Even if the original Byzantine church still existed under this new façade, it was transformed and revived as something else. It became a new St. Demetrius, in fact, an ideal St. Demetrius. This idealization was reflected in this violent renovation-revival, in the mandatory conformity of the church with its ideal image, in the final redesign of the new church as a meta-historical built representation of the ideal.

Additionally, the polar optical alignments of Doxiadis’ theory used by Pikionis were nothing but invisible visual threads ‘enchaining’ the buildings to each other; threads that visually shackled the buildings to their surrounding environment, stabilizing and immobilizing them in space. Here again, the intention was for space, time and architecture to ‘freeze’ in a stable condition, an ideal condition. Similarly, the observer should remain stationary and motionless if they are to capture the perfect visual image and see the ineffable harmony, in turn connecting the real with the ideal. Both this motionless mathematical order of space and the stillness of the observer themselves are essential in order for everything to be exactly where it should be. The polar alignments link structures in space, freeze time and stabilize the spectator in a certain fixed spot, the ideal spot, the spot of idealization.

But what is this ideal? With what is it related and what does it represent? Does it refer to a specific era? Is it related to a certain place?

Most scholars agree that the forms designed or constructed by Pikionis concerned something that originated in antiquity and lived on in different places and times, running through various aspects of Greek civilization. For this reason, when Dimitris Philippides described the above, he used the term “trans-Hellenic”, while Panayis Psomopoulos used the similar term “dia-Hellenic”. Similarly, Kenneth Frampton described Pikionis’ work as simultaneously “Greek” and “anti-Greek” (Frampton 1989, 6). What Frampton probably meant was that in the work of Pikionis one could find heterogeneous references; forms which were sometimes limited to the Modern Greek tradition or referred to an archaic period and, at other times, were entirely removed from Greek culture, referencing, for example, the traditional architecture of Japan:

Anti-Greek in that much of its inspiration lay elsewhere, remote in space and time, in other far-flung islands, in Honshu and in the archaic pre-Hellenic Aegean under a timeless sun.

It is a fact that, for Pikionis, ‘Greekness’ had value only as one of the multiple expressions of universality (Philippides 1984, 295-304). In any case, Pikionis never talked about an exclusively Greek Architecture. He was always seeking the one, common architecture which would draw elements from all known cultural traditions, unifying the West and the East, antiquity and modernity (Tzonis and Rodi 2013, 189-193). This perception of the European interwar period which explored and identified the common roots of world civilization, connecting, for example, the German Volksgeist to Ancient Greece or India, was indeed commonplace at the time Pikionis was becoming established as an architect. Thus, through his work, Pikionis sought that which timelessly forms a “true” Architecture. And that was not just one thing but a combination of many, diverse images and models (Theocharopoulou 2010, 111-131).

What Pikionis represented, both in his drawings and on the completed surfaces of his constructions, has often been described as a modern collage of stones, or a bricolage of symbolic forms of an ancient universal tradition (Kotionis 1998). According to Dimitris Antonakakis, this collage, derived from the ruins of the past, served as “a mirror inviting us to look at ourselves, and at what the previous generations had left us” (Antonakakis 1989, 15). Consequently, this collage is both a mirror and at the same time a specular reflection which brings the past (that bequeathed to us by previous generations) to the present and prompts us to look within ourselves; a transcendent specular reflection which speaks about us exactly because it speaks about our history, revealing the ultimate truth (alétheia) of things.

It seems that for Pikionis, as for Heidegger, the creation of an artwork was associated with a kind of “happening of truth” (Papayeorgiou 1982). Nevertheless, leaving aside the unresolved theoretical issues that a link between Pikionis and Heidegger would raise, we could say that the “thingness” sought by Pikionis was not merely an abstract ontological manifestation. Things did not just symbolically reference antiquity but constituted actual pieces of antiquity themselves. For Pikionis the spolia of the past that he used were, in practice, dismembered limbs-fetishes of a precious lost object. Thus, the active gaze of the observer was aiming at the aesthetic reconstruction of this object, at the visual ‘sacrament’ of the ‘body and blood’ of this primitive, trans-historical architectural tradition. When Pikionis used to say that he wanted, through his work, to “swim like the trout against the stream”, what he meant was that he wanted to be able to return to this primitive origin, back to this primary cultural source (Pikionis 1994 vol I, 15). This movement of return to the starting point was a movement towards the past, namely a reversal of time, and at the same time a movement towards an ancient matrix. And, if considering the ground plan as the “birthplace” of architectural form speaks to us about the earth as a matrix of forms and shapes, then this movement of return to the past is identified with an initial desire of return to an ancient “chora” (Kristeva 1982), the primitive Mother-Earth.

Once the above idealization was shaped through idealized images, I would say that we are getting very close to what Freud described as a “dream process” in his Interpretation of Dreams (Freud 1953). The composition of the images in space, as an organization of a narrative, the emergence of fragmented figures and their matching in symbolic signifiers, and the concern for the representative effect of forms, constituted quintessential elements of this process. The basic functions of the Freudian dream-work (condensation - displacement - representability) seem also as pre-eminent notions found in Pikionis’ projects. Condensation: heterogenous, forms, themes, figures, images and ideas combined into symbols. Displacement: a number of latent elements represented by a single manifest visual content. Representability: the reshaping of the primary material into specific images which are presentable and readable.

Pikionis’ project was a dream project. For this reason, whatever Pikionis drew was always specific and exact. In Pikionis’ sketches the forms are never presented as abstract shapes but as specific, crystal-clear, and recognizable images (Ferlenga 1999). Like hieroglyphics, which may refer to something else just because they are specific and recognizable, Pikionis’ shapes are not merely representative, but hide a latent content, “mysterious and ineffable”, which they reveal through a composition of “ideograms”, according to his words. Architecture as an ideographic language and the composition of symbolic images as hieroglyphic-pictographic writing, was ultimately conveyed to the spectator as a film shot. The well-known phrase of Pikionis, “I desired the unattainable”, clearly tells us that his architecture was nothing but a representational screen of his desire for the unattainable. For this reason, the ideal images designed and constructed by Pikionis were nothing but symbolic representations of this unadmitted wish. Similarly to what Lacan called “objet petit-a” or what Winnicot called “transitional object”, this unattainable desire of Pikionis was converted into an architectural image, as a wish it is likewise objectified in a dream and represented as a visible scene.

What Pikionis accomplished in his work was ultimately to present his ‘dream’ to us, through built three-dimensional representations; to show us through architectural images what cannot be said in words; to lead us through symbols to what is to be found prior to the symbolic. The architecture of Pikionis speaks to us about that which cannot be lexically articulated (Pikionis 1994 vol. VII, 131). For the ineffable, the invisible, the Corbusian indicible; that which is impossible to express in words, but which the eyes can see (Psomopoulos 2010). And the eye is able to see that which language cannot express precisely because the gaze is more ‘ancient’ than language: since it antedates speech, since the eye is able to go back in time, to an antiquity that language cannot approach. For this reason, if we wish to see that which is not visible, we must first speak of that which cannot be said. If Pikionis “could see everywhere in the world that which we cannot”, to quote Zisimos Lorentzatos, then our own interpretation can be valid only as an attempt to analyse Pikionis’ ineffable.

Bibliography 

Antonakakis 1989
D. Antonakakis, Dimitris Pikionis: Elaboration and Improvisation, in P. Johnston (ed.), Dimitris Pikionis, Architect 1886-1968, A Sentimental Topography, London 1989, pp. 10-17. 

Centanni 2017
M. Centanni, Frammenti di città, Ravenna 2017. 

Condaratos 1989
S. Condaratos, Dimitris Pikionis in Context, in P. Johnston (ed.), Dimitris Pikionis, Architect 1886-1968, A Sentimental Topography, London 1989, pp. 18-33. 

Doxiadis 1968
C. Doxiadis, Dimitris Pikionis: A Great Teacher, “Το Vima”, 1 September 1968. 

Ferlenga 1999
A. Ferlenga, Pikionis 1887-1968, Milano 1999 (with translations of Pikionis’ texts by M. Centanni). 

Ferlenga 2014
A. Ferlenga, Le strade di Pikionis, Siracusa 2014. 

Frampton 1989
K. Frampton, For Dimitris Pikionis, in P. Johnston (ed.), Dimitris Pikionis, Architect 1886-1968, A Sentimental Topography, London 1989, pp. 6-9. 

Freud [1900] 1953
S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, London 1953. 

Kotionis 1998
Z. Kotionis, Tο ερώτημα της καταγωγής στο έργο του Δημήτρη Πικιώνη, Athens 1998. 

Kristeva 1982
J. Kristeva, Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, New York 1982. 

Papageorgiou-Venetas 2010
A. Papageorgiou-Venetas, Ethos and Charisma. Dimitris Pikionis the Teacher, “Domes”, nn. 09-10 (2010), pp. 104-115. 

Papayeorgiou 1982
A. Papayeorgiou, Pikionis and his work, (Thesis submitted to the Rhode Island School of Architecture), New York 1982. 

Pikionis 1994
A. Pikionis, Agni (ed.). Dimitris Pikionis. Architectural Work, Athens 1994. 

Philippides 1984
D. Philippides, Nεοελληνική αρχιτεκτονική, Athens 1984. 

Philippides 2009
D. Philippides (ed.), Δημήτρης Πικιώνης: Οι ομιλίες του '65, Athens 2009. 

Pollock 2006
G. Pollock (ed.), Psychoanalysis and the image: transdisciplinary perspectives, Oxford 2006. 

Psomopoulos 2010
P. Psomopoulos, Dimitris Pikionis: An Indelible Presence in Modern Greece, “Domes”, nn. 09-10 (2010), pp. 116-133. 

Santoro 2008
M. Santoro, Lettera di Giorgio de Chirico a Dimitris Pikionis, 1912, “Metafisica. Quaderni della Fondazione Giorgio e Ida de Chirico”, nn. 7-8, Roma 2008. 

Santoro 2010
M. Santoro, Il mito nietzscheano di Arianna nella pittura di Giorgio De Chirico, “La Rivista di Engramma” n. 78 (2010). 

Theocharopoulou 2010
I. Theocharopoulou, Nature and the People, The Vernacular and the Search for a True Greek Architecture, in J. F. Lejeune, M. Sabatino (eds.), Modern Architecture and the Mediterranean, Vernacular Dialogues and Contested Identities, London 2010, pp. 111-131. 

Tsiambaos 2018a
K. Tsiambaos, From Doxiadis’ theory to Pikionis’ work: reflections of antiquity in modern architecture, London 2018. 

Tsiambaos 2018b
K. Tsiambaos, L’Utopie delphique, in L. Farnoux-Arnoux, P. Kosmadaki (eds.), Paris-Athènes 1919-1939: Le double voyage, Athens 2018, pp. 89-104. 

Tzonis and Rodi 2013
A. Tzonis, A. Rodi, Greece: Modern Architectures in History, London 2013.

full text with images

9H BIENNALE ΝΕΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ ΑΡΧΙΤΕΚΤΟΝΩΝ: ΗΜΕΡΙΔΑ

Robert Venturi (1925-2018) / Archetype.gr

Το μάθημα για τον Robert Venturi ήταν, και είναι, ένα από τα ‘standards’ των μαθημάτων Ιστορίας & Θεωρίας της Αρχιτεκτονικής του ΕΜΠ. Τόσο τα πιο προσωπικά έργα και βιβλία του Venturi (κατοικία της Vanna Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture) όσο και οι σημαντικές δουλειές του με την Scott-Brown (Learning from Las Vegas, Sainsbury Wing της National Gallery του Λονδίνου) διδάσκονται ως απαραίτητα κεφάλαια της αρχιτεκτονικής της σύγχρονης εποχής.* Κι όμως, ο Robert Venturi μοιάζει να είναι ακόμα ένας ‘παρεξηγημένος’ δημιουργός: Τι άλλο ήταν αυτός ο αρχιτέκτονας παρά ένας εικονοκλάστης, λαϊκιστής, κυνικός, αφελής; Ποιά είναι η αξία του και η σοβαρότητά του όταν αμφισβητούσε κάθε αξία και ειρωνευόταν κάθε σοβαρότητα; Γιατί να μας αρέσει ένα έργο που μοιάζει επιφανειακό, φτηνό, πρόσκαιρο, αύθαδες; Συνήθεις αξιολογικές κρίσεις οι οποίες εκφέρονται από φοιτητές και αρχιτέκτονες, ακόμα και πανεπιστημιακούς δασκάλους της αρχιτεκτονικής.

Αν όμως αυτός που κατηγορεί με ευκολία δεν έμενε στην επιφάνεια - την οποία υποτίθεται ότι απορρίπτει - αλλά πήγαινε πίσω από αυτήν, θα έβλεπε κάτι παραπάνω. Θα εκτιμούσε π.χ. την απλότητα της κατοικίας της Vanna Venturi ή την διακριτικότητα της επέκτασης της National Gallery και θα αναγνώριζε την ευφυία του μουσείου σύγχρονης τέχνης του San Diego ή την ποιητική της ξύλινης κατοικίας Lieb. Αλλά και αυτός που δεν θα έβρισκε τίποτα που να τον συγκινεί σε αυτήν την αρχιτεκτονική (δικαίωμά του) δεν θα μπορούσε παρά να εκτιμήσει την ριζοσπαστική θεωρητική ματιά του Venturi στην αρχιτεκτονική και την ιστορία της ή την πρωτότυπη ανθρωπολογική, σημειολογική εργασία του πάνω στις αστικές δομές του μεταβιομηχανικού καπιταλισμού.

Γιατί τελικά το "less is a bore" δεν ήταν ένα μανιφέστο κατά της απλότητας ή της αφαίρεσης. Το "more" που ήθελε ο Venturi ήταν ένα αίτημα για περισσότερη έρευνα, περισσότερη θεωρία, περισσότερη κριτική. Μια υπόμνηση ότι το Άστυ εμπεριέχει πολλαπλές αστικότητες, η Ιστορία πολλαπλές ιστορίες, ο Αρχιτέκτονας πολλαπλές πλευρές. Ο Venturi δεν μας ζητούσε να γίνουμε πολύπλοκοι και αντιφατικοί⋅ ζητούσε να μπορούμε να συνειδητοποιήσουμε την αντίφαση και πολυπλοκότητα της σύγχρονης (και όχι μόνο) πόλης και αρχιτεκτονικής ώστε να καταφέρουμε να υπερβούμε τα αδιέξοδα στα οποία οδηγούσε μια απλοϊκή σκέψη-επιθυμία σύμφωνα με την οποία ο (μοντέρνος) σχεδιασμός θα μπορούσε να δώσει τις σωστές απαντήσεις σε όλα τα προβλήματα. Μόνο μια τέτοια, καταρχάς, συνειδητοποίηση των ορίων μιας διαχειριστικής-γραφειοκρατικής στάσης θα οδηγούσε στην ανασυγκρότηση της αρχιτεκτονικής και του αρχιτέκτονα απέναντι σε νέα φαινόμενα και δεδομένα. Μόνο η αναγνώριση της σύνθετης μετανεωτερικής συνθήκης θα μπορούσε να ανοίξει τον δρόμο για την ανάπτυξη νέων μεθόδων και εργαλείων ανάλυσης και σύνθεσης.

Η παραπάνω, πολιτική τελικά, πρόταση για έναν εκ νέου στοχασμό της συνθετότητας είναι ίσως και η μεγαλύτερη κληρονομιά της σκέψης του Venturi. Ιδίως σήμερα όπου ο κίνδυνος, ξανά, βρίσκεται στο να νομίσουμε ότι οι απαντήσεις στα όσα μεγάλα και δύσκολα μας απασχολούν μπορούν να είναι απλές και προφανείς και οι λύσεις μπορούν να είναι οι γνωστές και δοκιμασμένες. Άλλωστε αυτή η εξιδανίκευση της απλότητας, της καθαρότητας και της σαφήνειας μπορεί, πολύ εύκολα, να συγκαλύπτει πολυπλοκότητες και αντιφάσεις που δεν έχουν 'αναλυθεί' ποτέ. 

https://www.archetype.gr/blog/arthro/robert-venturi-1925-2018

Το Ελληνικό Ινστιτούτο Αρχιτεκτονικής, στο πλαίσιο των δραστηριοτήτων του για την ανάπτυξη της σύγχρονης ελληνικής αρχιτεκτονικής, διοργανώνει την 9η Biennale Νέων Ελλήνων Αρχιτεκτόνων, τον Σεπτέμβριο 2018, στο Μουσείο Μπενάκη.

Τα εγκαίνια της έκθεσης θα πραγματοποιηθούν την Τετάρτη 26 Σεπτεμβρίου 2018 (Διάρκεια έκθεσης: 27 Σεπτεμβρίου - 25 Νοεμβρίου 2018).

Η θεσμοθέτηση της Biennale Νέων Ελλήνων Αρχιτεκτόνων ήταν μία από τις πρώτες δραστηριότητες του νεοσυσταθέντος Ελληνικού Ινστιτούτου Αρχιτεκτονικής το 1995. Στην πορεία του, από την 1η μέχρι την 8η Biennale, έχουν συμμετάσχει εκατοντάδες αρχιτέκτονες με διαφορά μεταξύ τους, μεγαλύτερη από μία γενιά. Η 9η Biennale θα αναδείξει τα πρόσωπο της σύγχρονης ελληνικής αρχιτεκτονικής στην περίοδο της κρίσης και για αυτό τον λόγο θα έχει ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον.

Μία Biennale αποτελεί ένα είδος περιοδικής απογραφής, η οποία στοχεύει στην ανθολόγηση της καλύτερης τρέχουσας παραγωγής των νέων δημιουργών. Μία Biennale όμως δεν καταγράφει μόνον τα πεπραγμένα μιας εποχής, αλλά προβάλλει ορισμένα έργα από ένα ευρύτερο σύνολο ως τα πλέον σημαντικά, αποτυπώνοντας το «στίγμα» της διετίας. Κατ’ αυτόν τον τρόπο η Biennale αποτελεί την έκφραση ενός σύγχρονου αρχιτεκτονικού «ύφους», από μία συγκεκριμένη οπτική γωνία.

Στη φετινή 9η Biennale, το Ε.Ι.Α. αποφάσισε, όπως είχε πράξει και παλαιότερα, να αναβαθμίσει τον ρόλο της επιτροπής επιλογής, προσκαλώντας τα μέλη της να προβληματιστούν πάνω στο υλικό που θα υποβληθεί και να επιλέξουν, ο καθένας ξεχωριστά, τα έργα που θεωρεί ως τα πλέον αξιόλογα. Κατ’ αυτόν τον τρόπο ο επισκέπτης της έκθεσης θα μπορεί να ‘αναγνώσει’ αφενός τις επιλογές των κριτών και αφετέρου τα αιτιολογικά τους κείμενα.

Η πενταμελής επιτροπή αποτελείται από τον Πρόεδρο του Ε.Ι.Α., Ηλία Κωνσταντόπουλο και τους αρχιτέκτονες, Κωνσταντίνα Κάλφα, Θεώνη Ξάνθη, Πάνο Τσακόπουλο και Κώστα Τσιαμπάο. 

 

https://www.heliarch.gr/event/5554

 

Οι επιλογές της Έκθεσης