Summer with art in Athens and London

A city’s reflexes are only revealed through the art the city is exhibiting and creating…or at least that’s what I think.For me the art that I see during my summer holidays usually inspires the work that I create until next summer. This is because that is the period when architecture festivals are usually carried out. I saw the most inspiring art and engineering pieces in a handful of student proposals (AA Review 2017, ‘Open 2017’ University of Westminster School of Architecture) as part of their research in materials and geometric forms. I saw some captivating sculptures and installations pieces in parks (exhibition entitled ‘The garden sees’ in the garden of Megaron, Athens) during some rare quiet moments and I saw some interesting scenarios about the future of our cities in abandoned buildings (exhibition entitled ‘Tomorrows’ at Diplarios School in Athens, end of year show -University of Bath School of Architecture at the Truman Brewery during LFA 2017). The exhibitions ‘Brave Old World’ at the RIBA combined with ‘Futures Found’ at the Architecture Space of the Royal Academy of the Arts, provided rich conceptual stimuli on what concerns the legibility of notions of private versus public in ‘public’ spaces, while the exhibition ‘The Japanese House’ at the Barbican,combined with the BBC’s documentary about Japan and  the book ‘The Vanished’ was inspiring in many aspects .  My visit to the Watts Chapel in Guildford and to the Frieze Sculpture exhibition on a weekday morning at Regent’s Park after the rain, provided the most ideal ‘closing’ of the summer period’s exhibitions. Now it is time to explore all the different ideas that the artwork has instigated…

The ideas that I would like to explore further in my own projects next year, will be based on the art that I saw in the exhibitions/buildings that I visited and concern the following concepts: the stitch as a form-finding mechanism, the texture of a surface as evidence of ‘trauma’, degree of perforation in dividing structures as a
evidence of varying degrees of freedom, architecture as mandala art,architectural ‘leftovers’ in public spaces as remnants of a collective memory that has been erased, emptiness and its relation to desertion and to the positive ‘negative’ space (or ‘ma 間’ in japanese), similarities between the arrangement of words in a sentence and building forms along a road.

Impressions from Athens-Part 2

Despite the heavy and negative criticism that it has received from the media (both local and international), Documenta14 is the biggest and most ambitious artistic festival that has been organized in Athens for many years. Therefore my visit could not ignore this and so, after reading the short summary for every film screening, every installation, every performance, every exhibition that has been included the programme of this festival, I chose to visit 7 of the 40 sites that are participating in it. My only criterion was based on what appealed most to my artistic instincts. The sites I visited were the following: Benaki Museum (Pireos Building), National Technical University of Athens, Ancient Agora, Athens Conservatoire, 15 Stavropoulou street, Athens School of Fine Arts, Museum of Anti-dictatorial and Democratic Resistance.

Documenta14 is entitled ‘Learning From Athens‘ and despite what the title implies, the performances and exhibitions in many of the participating sites, have little or nothing to do with Athens or the history of each site.It is important to note that the 40 sites were

selected by the organizers, based on their historic significance in the history of Greece and that of Athens as well. There are plenty of sources online for anyone who might be interested in reading about the controversies that accompanied some performances that have already been presented in a few of these sites.

 

In my opinion, there were important and strong conclusions to be drawn just by noticing that the biggest percentage of the visitors of Documenta14 were tourists and even local people were greeted in english or german by greek members of staff in most of these sites. One could not ignore the fact, that a lot of works had not been translated in greek (some videos did not even have subtitles) and thus were immediately incomprehensible by the local people.A lot of the artwork was not explained as there was no accompanying text and/or the accompanying text was placed on the floor and was consisted of more than 10 A4 pages with very small fonts…

Of all the exhibits I saw during my visit in Athens and Documenta14 in 10 days,it was the performances and the projects that combined music and crafts that I liked the most, as I found that they were both beautiful in themselves and were mostly associated with the nature and use of the buildings in which they were presented. Despite its original and fascinating title Documenta14 seems to have failed to deliver its mission which was to learn from Athens.

Approaching it as a big art festival without ascribing to it any historic meaning or any other idea that had to do with the city of Athens as a paradigm, seemed to be the ideal way to appreciate the artwork and the abundance of information and material that the curators of this festival have skilfully gathered together in one show. It is beyond doubt, that the visitor of Documenta14 will leave this festival having enriched his/her knowledge in a number of areas.

 

Impressions from Athens-Part 1

Impressions from Athens-Part 1

My recent visit to Athens, a neglected city in transition, revealed the different ways in which architects and artists are being inspired by various aspects of this city. The architectural exhibition at The Art Foundation (TAF) was about a collaborative project between Teta Tsybulnyk from the 86 Film Festival and METASITU from T.A.F. A team of architects (The Thinking Group) from Ukraine studied Athens and more specifically, the athenian districts, in order to apply some of the most inspiring elements of these districts, to the proposal for the design of the 14th district of the city of Slavutych.

“Slavutych was built in the aftermath of the explosion of the fourth reactor at Chernobyl Power Plant in 1986, in order to relocate the workers and their families. The town is comprised of 13 districts that each represent architectural qualities of different soviet cities – Baku, Tbilisi, Yerevan,Vilnius, Tallinn, Riga, Kyiv, Belgorod, Moscow and Leningrad – who were also responsible to provide masterplaners, construction materials and masons to complete each of the neighborhoods. The whole city was built in 18 months. The Athenian district will be the 14th.” (from the exhibition’s press release).

Using different ‘tools’, the team of architects, used the green line of I.S.A.P (Athens-Piraus Electric Railways) in order to traverse the city. In each train stop, the team followed a route based on instinct and on a creative scenario that was written beforehand and used sketches, diagrams, photos and even sound mapping in order to capture the essence of each area and of each district. One of the most interesting conclusions of this detailed urban analysis, was that there are similarities in the way Ukrainians and Athenians live in apartment blocks (the greek word is ‘Polykatoikia’ from the words πολλοί=many and κατοικία=habitat).

The drawings of this project were hung vertically arranged so as to form a 3D helix that completely the exhibition’s space. 

Low carbon cement- A new material

It may be that the government’s priorities have shifted away from sustainability but the industry of construction materials is yes to give up. Research is still carried out with the aim to introduce to the market, sustainable and energy efficient materials. Stephen Cousins writes:

 

 

A new geopolymer cement is claimed to reduce carbon emissions during manufacture by 80% compared with Portland cement…‘The amount of CO₂ emitted during manufacture of one tonne of Portland cement is typically just under 800kg,’ McIntosh says. ‘By contrast, producing one tonne of BanahCEM solids results in around 200kg of emissions. In addition, 60% fewer virgin raw materials must be extracted from the Earth to produce BanahCEM.‘

Read more here: https://www.ribaj.com/products/low-carbon-cement-goes-commercial

Ostrava a place where monumentality and melancholy meet

If I wanted to make a sketch about Ostrava, it would probably be a black and white one, where the shadows would dominate the picture and the lighter areas would act as ‘sparkling’ elements that illuminate momentarily the dark spots. This is a city that was once defined by the coal industry. Ostrava occupies the two banks of Ostrá river and is now trying to be redefined or rather to present itself again to the public through regeneration schemes. De-industrialization, a process both negative and positive in many aspects, has transformed the city of Ostrava. The large scale of the industrial sites, the machinery and the infrastructure for the ironworks has had such a big impact both on the image and the perception of the city.