The First Athens Architecture Workshop starts today!

The city of Athens rises to the north of the Acropolis in a vast plain of the Attican peninsula, dotted with low hills and circumscribed by mountains and unfolding to the south towards the sea. To the west of the city stands Mount Egaleo, to the North-West Mount Parnitha, to the North-East Mount Pentelikon and south-east the linear formation of Mount Ymittos. The ancient urban unity of Athens reached its highest level of completeness, Between the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. In this era the polis expanded across the plain from the “sacred rock” of the Acropolis to the sea with the “Great walls” to Piraeus, the port on the Saronic Gulf (Saronikos Kolpos).

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVE

IV century BC - After the Ottoman occupation the city grows beyond its ancient boundaries. Great roads unify the ancient to the new radially towards the North. Actually, the city occupies a vast area, which extends from the aforementioned circumscribing mountains to the sea on the South and from Marathon to Eleusis, east and west respectively. In its contemporary urban form, two images of the city coexist, that of the ancient city integrated with that of the neoclassical period, on one hand and that of the diffused city as a result of the spontaneous growth of the modern metropolis, on the other. Nevertheless, the signs of the ancient city have remained as “indelible” components in the memory of contemporary Athens, which through the years has “rewritten” its history on the ancient traces.

Seven sites have been chosen for the purposes of this workshop, located between the ancient and the 19th century areas of the city centre. These sites, of course, have diverse characteristics due to their location, ranging from residual areas within the consolidated urban fabric, to areas in direct relation with the geological formations in the centre of the urban environment of the city. The objective of the workshop is to attribute an identity and scale to these sites and to inquire through the design process, their hidden potential.

1 • Lycabettus
Between the hill and
surrounding urban tissue
2 • Leoforos Alexandras
Between ‘Pedion tou Areos’ park &
‘Prosfygika’ district
3 • Lykeion park & Liberty park
Cultural garden chain
4 • Plateia Klafthmonos
Between the Neoclassical Triangle & the
Lycabettus district
5 • Plateia Koumoundourou
Between the Neoclassical Triangle & the
Metaxourgeion district
6 • Neoclassical Triangle
Study of its public spaces
7 • Stathmos Larissis
Athens railway complex

Check the program here.

Architecture Workshop in Athens!

The very first Architecture Workshop, titled (what else?) "1st Athens Architecture Workshop", will take place in Athens, with the initiative of architect Nikos Ktenas and the invaluable participation of Vassilios P. Bartzokas, with Carteco as a sponsor and Brainlab as support. The whole thing is under the aegis of the Municipality of Athens.

This international architecture workshop will take place from the 21st of July until the 2nd of August, in Athens. It is aimed at foreign and Greek students of Architecture as well as young architects working abroad. Prominent personalities of European Architecture will be teaching : Aires Mateus, Piere Allain Croset, Antonio Tejedor, Μichel Kagan, Nikos Ktenas and others. During the workshop, lectures open to the public will be given by João Luís Carrilho da Graça (Lisbon), Antonio Citterio (Milan), Aurelio Galfetti (Lugano), Franco Purini (Rome), while an exhibition of the projects will be organized and a special catalogue published.

The aim is to give the possibility, through a detached view of prominent architects but of young architects too, to form architectural proposals for particular areas within Athens. Seven locations in the city centre have been chosen for this reason. These locations gather endogenously as well as between them a variety of disparate characteristics, and are spotlighted as study areas so that they can acquire a contemporary identity that will highlight their particularity and character.

This undertaking is a challenge to all, participants and teachers as well as citizens of Athens (who will be able to be the recipients of this projects results - an alternative look on their city's public space reality), as a research on one of the oldest cities of Europe, with its particularity of historical, geographical and cultural elements. In other words, this architecture workshop places contemporary Athens in the place of a city whose public space has to be confronted henceforth with an architectural conscience and sensibility from all, beginning mainly from an academic research level that expects to be extended as a collective conscience.

The workshop is addressed to new architects but also to graduate and postgraduate students of architecture and the attendance costs 350 Euros per individual. Everyone will be dealt with on a first come-first served basis. A bulletin of attendance and more information are available at http://www.aa-w.net