(Un)learning from Athens
Map of the artistic network in Athens with alternative places of creation,
the documenta 14 venue and more officials places.
the documenta 14 venue and more officials places.
This project begins with a comprehensive understanding of the Athenian urban situation, bringing together social, economic, political, and historical aspects.
Firstly, deeply impressed by this city and aware of the complexity of its constellation of actors, I began mapping the existing cultural network, from NGOs to institutional spaces. Athens is a very dynamic creative hub of Greece. The question was how to position myself in this already dense creative and solidarity-based field. An initial analysis brought together a series of interviews in Athens with figures from the cultural scene such as Kassandras with Matthieu Pratt, Locus.Athens, and the Victoria Square project with Dorothea Kritikou and George Kalivis.
Firstly, deeply impressed by this city and aware of the complexity of its constellation of actors, I began mapping the existing cultural network, from NGOs to institutional spaces. Athens is a very dynamic creative hub of Greece. The question was how to position myself in this already dense creative and solidarity-based field. An initial analysis brought together a series of interviews in Athens with figures from the cultural scene such as Kassandras with Matthieu Pratt, Locus.Athens, and the Victoria Square project with Dorothea Kritikou and George Kalivis.
Exarcheia’s neighborhood
Left :
Map of all the closed shops, abandonned groundfloors in the neighborhood of Exarcheia
Right :
Map of all the Stoas in the neighborhood of Exarcheia
Exarcheia became a free zone after a child was killed by the police. This area, located in the heart of Athens, brings together all sorts of social and urban typologies. It contains many buildings and shops abandoned due to the previous economic crisis. All these vacant interior spaces are sometimes transformed into shelters, squats for activists, small galleries, or Airbnbs.
I focused on the abandoned shops on the ground floor, under the stoas, which are Athenian covered passageways that sometimes run along a plot of land or sometimes just a facade. More than just a passageway, they are a kind of public space for meeting, shopping, etc. As Athens is facing a shortage of public spaces, these spaces seemed crucial to me. The idea of developing a project with these typologies became obvious.
Stoas ?
Different typologies of stoa existing &Potential places of intervention
Photos of different abandonned Stoas
Photos of different abandonned Stoas
The project
The issue of reactivating the ground floors under Stoas cannot be considered a single problem to be solved in itself. I also tried to think about how the interior spaces of Stoas could become the basis of a longer-term solution. In parallel with mapping all the unoccupied ground floors, I tried to identify potential public spaces that could be improved or transformed in the city center. For example, public spaces lacking furniture, brownfield sites, parking lots, and completely abandoned buildings. This idea of duality arose from the fact that many free ground floors were often located nearby: a completely empty building, a brownfield site, a free parking lot, a virtually abandoned public space, etc.
Concretely, I then considered renovating the vacant ground floors and opening them up to develop an architectural residency to solve long-term problems. This would initially energize and illuminate the passageway under the stoas and also open up interior spaces for shared projects.
With proximity on the ground, teams of "creatives" and spatial practitioners could brainstorm projects related to the type of urban issues we had previously encountered. This project seemed realistic to me after witnessing a very intense engagement in Athens on urbanity, inclusivity, and participatory processes. Strengthening the network of committed people and providing a space for sharing ideas was a continuation of an already existing dynamic.