Abstract
Currently, riots, protests, strikes, demonstrations and graffiti on the walls are transforming public space in Athens into a platform for negotiation, dialogue and even violence. Nevertheless, we perceive the insurgent public space is not a particular character of life in a given place. It arises more reflection and poses tremendous questions beyond a geographical boundary. This project will attempt to take Athens as a paradigm to probe into the domain of public space. On the one hand, a series of dramatic social transformations accelerated by the economic crisis and demographic shift have been physically reflected in its public space, in a form of rebellions or struggle. It is part of the global network of insurgent public space. On the other hand, it stands out by virtue of its unique economic mechanism which results in a ‘private’ urbanization. By researching its urbanization and documenting and reading recent points of insurrections and appropriations in the city, this research intends to articulate its internal crisis and claims beyond rebellions, and finally through a new act of spatial practice to analyse and explore the possibility of a common after the withering of public space. For the design part, it attempts to explore the possibility of common space- a space beyond the binary opposition of public and private, and use façade as a principle tool to transform and unify the existing urban fabric- street and square. A resulting contiguous series of loggia and chambers will unfold in the whole city to achieve the sense of commonality.
Contents Part I Athens Beyond: Introduction to Athens Cluster 01 Urbanization
1.1 Research Thesis 1.2 Methods
02 Athens
2.1 Neo-classical Master Plan of the Capital City 2.2 Urbanization through Typology
1 2 3 5 6 8
2.3 Urbanization through Networks
14
3.1 Crisis
22
03 Beyond urbanization 3.2 Hypothesis
Part II After public space: framework for a potential common
21 23
Introduction
26
02 The neoliberal demise of public space in Athens
33
01 The withdraw of public realm and public space 2.1 Private urbanization of Athens
2.2 Problematic public space in Athens
03 Social practices of commoning
3.1 Potential common through appropriation 3.2 The exodus of common
04 Facade as a tool- precedents research 4.1 Haussmann and boulevarding
4.2 The Stalinallee and ‘people’ palaces
4.3 Karl Max’s hof and a communist fortress
05 Project strategy
29 34 38 43 44 49 51 52 54 56
5.1 Hypothesis
60
5.3 Loggia
75
5.2 Proposal
5.4 Chambers
06 Conclusion
62 103 117
Appendix I ‘The City: A New Centrality’ Workshop
121
Appendix III London Workshop
130
Appendix II Horrizontal Workshop
Figure List
126
132
Part I:Athens Beyond Introduction to Athens Cluster
Group Work
Athens Cluster, MArch. Urban Design, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Students: Chrysanthe Constantinou Ting Ding Yunzhu (Joy) Guo Yishan (Shannon) Li Jing Lin Bin (Robin) Liu Lavanya Venugopal Lirong (April) Wang Ya Wang Zilong Yang Qingmin Ye Xi Zhang
Tutors: Yannis Aesopos Ross Exo Adams
The research begins with the questions of “what is the urban” and “what is urbanization”. The phenomenon of urbanization and its related problems have their implications not only in Athens, but also in other cities of the Mediterranean. It is essential to begin with a deep understanding about them in the context of human history so that we can open our thought toward a project, or more importantly, release ourself from the traditional problem-solving mode of thinking. Athens in this sense, is a good paradigm with conditions and qualities that reveals these broader issues for our research.
01 Urbanization
Fig. 1
1.1 Research thesis
Fig. 2
Over the course of the studio, the attempt has been to understand and challenge the essence of the urban, not only its formation, but also its representation. By recognising the urban as an conceptual entity, with an intrinsic characteristic of being a limitless process, the studio uses it as a medium to locate the projects and cultivate a political understanding of the city. The understanding of the urban begins with the historical distinction between the urban and the city. The city could be understood as a space that distinguished the natural world outside its walls and housed human existence as well as acting as a symbolic place of political life. It was characterised as a historically static artifact.
The urban, being a relatively new concept as opposed to the city, is seen as the dynamic product of the urbanization process. The order of space becomes determined by quantums of movement, infrastructure and domesticity of the modern lifestyle since nineteenth century. The urban systematized life into a topographical logic of domesticity. No longer gaining its form and significance from politics, the urban has become a domestic continuum of life. Its 'site' is not limited to any specific location, allowing the potential urbanisation of the entire planet. 2
Fig. 3
‘Urbanisation’ identifies both a process and a logic in which the concrete order of space and form is itself the basis from which political, economic, social and material conditions are created and mediated. Urbanisation is the medium which results from, and causes crisis; it is the process which perverts the notions of publicness and privateness alike; it is the activity which itself brings the theatre of war into permanent contact with society; it is a spatial logic which attempts to reduce life itself into an economic calculation of housing and circulation, consumption and production, debt and credit. In short, it is a spatio-political order produced by and correlated to society.
The understanding of the urban realm today is increasingly through understanding the contents of the urban in a slew of statistical quantities, demographics of population, cities distilled as numbers and people as biological bodies consuming and producing a set of quantities. An awareness that urbanization evovled from a collection of heterogenous disciplines, bodies of knowledge, materialities and technologies. The attempt of the studio is to make explicit and question this method of flattening the urban.
1.2 Methods
Fig. 4
It is the knowledge of this epistemic shift in understanding the process of urbanisation through which we try to approach the idea of beyond urbanisation. Athens serves as a paradigm to understand how urbanisation has occurred through specific, strategic events, motivated through various political and geopolitical reasons that have directly impacted the urban. The entry into Athens begins through a deep comprehension of the morphology of the city by redrawing it in its entirety: drawing as research. The attempt is through the construction of a body of knowledge on social, scientific, political and philosophical realms to understand the physical materiality of the city in relation to its legal, political and economic mechanisms. This way it becomes possible to construct a different history of Athens and thereby, a different history of urbanization.
Fig. 1 Urban Sprawl of Tokyo
Fig. 2 View of the castle in the middle of Hawler,Kurdistan
Fig.3 Mexico City
Fig. 4 Overview of centrial Athens from the north 3
02 Athens
Fig. 7
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Through a rigorous archaeology of the urban, the studio aims to look at Athens's recognisable history through a critical lens.
pattern connecting two major squares and the palace. The fabric of a new city was superimposed on the old streets. But in the next year, Klenze modified the plan by incorporating the existing fabric and retaining the triangular pattern. This is really the first and last authorized and constructed master plan of Athens. The demolition of the wall symbolized a new era of Athens.
2.1 Neoclassical master plan of the Capital city
The history of Modern Greece begins with its independence from the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of a ' Modern Greek State' in 1830. Athens becomes the capital of the Greek State in 1834; until then it had been a small town, limited by a clear boundary and focussed on the Acropolis at its centre. It wasn't until it became Greece's capital city that a master plan was drawn up. As a part of Nation-building program, Kleanthis & Schaubert designed the first master plan in 1833, proposing a northern and eastern extension of the old city. In an overall symmetrical scheme, the Acropolis and the new royal palace formed the main axis of a triangular
In the years followed, the Greek state expanded its territory through the 'Great Idea' of the Greater Greece in this nation-building period.
Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime-Minister in 1912, initiated a major reform program, including a more liberal constitution and reforms in the spheres of public administration, education and economy. The State doubled in surface and population through a series of bilateral agreements between the Christian Balkan states (Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia) which in October 1912 declared a war on the Ottoman Empire which ensued until 1920 .
Fig.5 The New Plan for the City of the Athens, designed by Kleanthis and Schaubert in 1833; Fig.6 The Klenze Plan for the City of the Athens (1834), a revised version of the Kleanthis-Schaubert plan. 6
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 7 The Greek territory in 1832.
Fig. 8 The Greek territory in 1913 when the Balkan War started.
Fig. 9 The Greek territory in 1920. 7
1987-1995 1962-1987 1944-1962 1929-1944 Before 1929
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 10
2.2 Urbanization through typology
The wars between Greece and Turkey led to big rifts in Greek society, leading to one of the biggest events in the history of Greece, a compulsory population exchange. Over 1.5 million Christians and almost half a million Muslims was uprooted since 1922. This 'Catastrophe of Smyrna' as it came to be known was the idea of ethnic cleansing that marked the end of the 'Great Idea'.
Due to this event, Athens's population climbed to more than four hundred thousands. The urban expansion caused by this population boom was aggravated more in the post-war period. However, because of the unstable political conditions, the process was not through any large scale masterplanning, but rather through small scale repetition of the multi-dwelling unit, the polykatoikia and the direct involvement of many stakeholders. Polykatoikia or the multi-unit dwelling, a Greek interpretation of
the Corbusian "Dom-ino" system, can be viewed as the city's urban unit. Based on its structural logic, the Polykatoikia can be completed easily, quickly and inexpensively and occupied floor by floor as resources permit.
The form of polykatoikia has been shaped and modified through the Greek General Building Regulations over different periods. Constructed by small-to-medium scale contractors, the polykatoikia acted not only as the tool for confronting large demographic changes, but also as the meeting point of numerous discourses, political agendas, legal frameworks and bodies of knowledge.
Fig. 13
Antiparochi was the system through which polykatoikias were built, a unique tool (not formal law) of horizontal property division in Greece. It is an unofficial contract between the land owners and contractors, an exchange of land with a certain proportion of the built apartments. No money exchang was involved during this process.
Fig. 14
Fig. 11 Polykatoikia on Amalias Avenue, Athens, 1963, Takis Zenetos, architect Fig. 12 Generic polykatoikia
Fig. 10 Expantion of dwelling areas of Athens. 8
Fig. 13 Evolution of the Greek Building Regulation.
Fig. 14 Graphic representation of antiparochi 9
Fig. 15
Due to the originally dense and highly fragmented land ownership, and the mechanism of construction, the built form can be seen as a vertical extrusion of the divisions of private property. The polykatoikia was repeated to create a mélange of grid patterns. Different types and densities show that although the polykatoikia is the “urban unit” that expanded endlessly, the city grid is obviously not homogeneous. Due to the lack of an overall master plan, the grids of Athens are fragmented. They were products of small-to-medium scale plans realized by building cooperatives and informal housing processes.
Fig. 15 The repetition of the single units 10
Fig. 16
Fig. 16 Different types of grids in Athens 11
With the help of a new cheap labour force along with foreign investments, the polykatoikia developed into a repetitive apparatus for rapid urbanization and economic development, especially after WWII. The mechanism of production and distribution of the polykatoikia has been firmly rooted in smallto-medium-scale private ownership schemes, devoid of any state investment in any stage for housing.
Fig. 17
Through the process of urban expansion, the success of the polykatoikia in offering a pragmatic response to the demands of modernization resulted in an intense “private urbanization” and the construction of a “domestic city”, which makes Athens a unique paradigm for an approach to the urban. On the other hand, the open spaces remain undesigned and constantly treated as a residue of private space.
Fig. 17 Drawing of centrial Athens, group work 12
Fig. 18Fig. Drawing 17 Drawing of centrial of centrial AthensAthens and itsand periphery, its periphery group work 13
2.3 Urbanization through networks
Since Greece joined the EU in 1981 and Euro Zone in 2001, there have been significant shifts in urban policies. With the easy bank loans with low interests through the supporting policy of the Euro Zone, and the preparation for the Olympic Games, Athens witnessed a new type of urbanisation, one through the addition of networks, creating a peripheral urbanization of a more generic and global form.
Fig. 19 Drawing of Attica Region, group work. 14
15
Fig. 20
The Railway system for example saw three metro lines constructed during the 1990s. The metro, together with the suburban railway connects the monumental sites in the city and links the city of Athens with the new international airport. In the new metro regulatory plan published for 2021, a further four lines are proposed. The highway network is another important feature transforming the city.Attiki Odos is the most important example of this system. It connects all the important hubs for interchange such as airport, ports, railway stations, etc. and serves more than 30 districts in Attica. However, the construction of this road was mainly funded by EU and the international banks. Indicative that this new mode of
Fig. 21
urbanization in Athens is intensively affected by the global economy and global politics.
Winning the bid to host the 2004 Olympics was a significant
milestone in Athens' history as it marked the beginning of numerous large scale developments towards the construction of 'Olympic Athens'. Through the improvement of the infrastructural system, the mobility in Athens was highly strengthened. That made it possible to distribute the Olympic venues over the territory of Attica. Correspondingly, these mega-projects transformed both the urban fabric within the built area and the geography of the region and distributed the city’s growth along the periphery.
Fig. 20 Strategic plan for Athens/Attica 2021
Fig. 21 Large-scale infrastructures and sports venues for Athens 2004 Olympic Games 16
Fig. 22 Circulation networks in Attica drawing, group work 17
Fig. 23
From late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations due to strong increase in government debt levels. Downgrading of Greek government debt to junk bonds created alarm in financial markets. On 2nd May 2010, the Eurozone and the IMF agreed on a â‚Ź110 billion loan for Greece, conditional on the implementation of harsh austerity measures. It is the direct spark that caused the outbreak of a social and political crisis in Athens. Meanwhile, there are widespread fears that a Greek default on its debt would have global repercussions, threatening the stability of the European currency, the euro, and possibly plunging the world into recession. The crisis of Athens and Greece has been related to a much boarder scale: that of the EU or even that of the entire world market. On the other hand, it affected the living status of every individual, questioning the urbanization which is viewed as the background of the human conditions today. 18
Fig. 23 View of Athens 19
03 Beyond Urbanization
Fig. 24
Fig. 26
Fig. 25
3.1 Crisis
Crisis is the inevitable buzzword for Athens today. In fact, it has become the inevitable clichĂŠ of southern Europe and even the whole Mediterranean region. But crisis is reinterpretted as not only the catalyst for urbanization, but also as something that resolves itself through more urbanization. Therefore the aim is not to try and
Fig. 24 Burning Christmas tree in Syntagma Square during 2008 Youngth Uprising. Fig. 25 Milos Bicanski,graffiti on the street of Athens. 22
resolve crisis, but rather to try and expose what it means.
The original meaning of crisis is judgment, by which justice and the political order could be harmonized through appropriate legal decisions. It indicated that crisis is not a singular problem that needs to be solved, but a crucial moment for a decision and the demand for action.
3.2 Hypothesis
As architects, the hypothesis is that a spatial order beyond the urban must urgently be considered. For this, we need to look at spatial orders, configurations and conditions that go beyond the urban by looking at spaces, architectural forms and even the physical material, political and social realms that already exist within the urban and provoking them through the medium of design. To develop such a hypothesis, we choose to understand Athens through a rigorous archeology of its material, technological, administrative, legal and
economic formation; that is to say, through an archaeology of its urbanisation. Only by knowing the materiality of the city itself along with the coordinated bodies of knowledge from multiple disciplines are we able to construct a different history of Athens beyond the flatten city of data and the spectacle of crisis. We seek instead to open up new, radical and politicized modes of intervention as openings within the urban condition—spaces not formed in opposition to the urban but which open out to a world beyond its political and spatial inevitability.
Fig. 26 Matrix of project concepts from group members 23
Part II: After Public Space Framework for a Potential Common
Individual Work
Introduction
1.Dalakouglou,D & Vradis, A 2011, ‘Spatial legacies of December and the right to the city’, in Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D(eds), Revolt and crisis in Greece: Between a present yet to pass and a future still to come, AK Press and Occupied London, Oakland, Baltimore, Edinburgh, London & Athens, pp.7788. 2. Arendt, H 1958, The Human Condition, C h a r l e s R . Wa l g r e e n Fo u n d a t i o n l e c t u r e s . University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
The revolt in December 2008 opened a new chapter for Athens. No one has ever expected the killing of a 15-year-old student by police could spark an unprecedented fire of rebellions on streets for a month. Different groupsuniversity and high school students, migrants, unemployed, and precarious workers- poured into streets and outlet their rage toward anything representing consumerism and sovereign power (Dalakouglou& Vradis 2011). The government anticipated everything would return to normal after that, whereas December revolt was never the end of insurrections in public spaces. The subsequent debt crisis has caused radical changes to political, social and economic environment within the city. Riots, protests, strikes, demonstrations and graffiti on the walls are transforming the fixed landscape of the city into a platform for negotiation, dialogue and even violence. Public spaces begin to function as spatial representations of social contradictions and a mirror reflecting those conflicts between different groups. Considerable resistant performances in public spaces are challenging our perception of it and its notion from ancient polis, where people from different positions are gathered for appearance (by action and speech) and prevented their falling over each other (Arendt, 1958).
Nevertheless, we perceive the insurgent public space is not a particular character of life in a given place. It arises more reflection and poses tremendous questions beyond a geographical boundary. December revolt quickly spread through the majority cities of Greece, and more than 200 solidary actions took place along the globe in that month (Makrygianni & Tsavdaroglou 2011). Massive and effective street protests spur and contested issues of citizenships and democracy. The occupations of Syntagma Square in Athens, Tahrir square in Cairo and Zuccotti Park in New York City all illustrated the declining of public space and their claims of a new and real one. These insurrections in public space virtually represent a fluid worldwide crisis of democracy and freedom under the expropriation, enclosures and exploitation by capitalism. In Post-Fordism, on the one hand, the prevailing privatizations, spatial domination, policing, and surveillance on the civic life, have led to the decline or fall of public realm. On the other hand, it triggers the potentiality to construct and inhibit new forms of social relations- the common to negotiate the conflict between the governing and governed. The struggles to transform public spaces and public goods in the city for common purposes are in process. By claiming a public in public space, and appropriating public spaces through collaboration and sharing, social groups themselves become the common.
Makrygianni, V & Tsavdaroglou H 2011, ‘Urban planning and revolt: a spatial analysis of the December 2008 uprising in Athens’, in Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D(eds), Revolt and crisis i n G re e c e : B e t we e n a present yet to pass and a future still to come, AK Press and Occupied London, Oakland, Baltimore, Edinburgh, London & Athens, pp. 2957.
The research part will attempt to take Athens as a paradigm to probe into the domain of public space. It will firstly trace the struggling history of public space in different ages from ancient polis to modern democracy, to clarify its role in political life and the reason for its shrink; then document and read recent points of insurrections and appropriations in the city, to articulate its internal crisis and claims beyond the revolts and protests, and finally through a new act of spatial practice to analyze and explore the possibility of a common after the withering away of public space.
Fig. 27 2008 December revolts in Athens 26
27
Oakland
Wisconsin
UK
Toronto
New York
Russia
Bahrain
Mexico
Ethiopia
Sausi Arabia India Yemen
Tibet
Burma
Beijing
Japan
Fig.28 2011 Worldwide protest network
01 The withdraw of public realm and public space
SPAIN ALGERIA
TUNISIA
LIBYA
GREECE LEBANON EGYPT
ISRAEL
SYRIA JOROAN
Fig. 29 2011 Medditerannean Protest network 28
29
The origin of public realm can be traced back to ancient Greece. In Greek self-interpretation, public realm means ‘freedom and permanence’ (Habermas 2010, p. 4). Only in the light of public realm, does everything become visible to all. Hannah Arendt addressed it as the space of appearance, which arise out by the act of action and speech. ‘it is the space of appearance in the widest sense of the word, namely, the space where I appear to others as others appear to me, where men exist not merely like other living or inanimate things but make their appearance explicitly’ (Arendt 1958, p. 199). If this public realm is located in so-called public space, then public space should be seen as the spatial representation of democracy and freedom, in ancient Greece, that are preserved in agora. Agora functioned as ‘the place of citizenship, an open space where public affairs and legal disputes were conducted. It was also a marketplace, a place of pleasurable jostling, where citizens’ bodies, words, actions, and produce were all literally on mutual display, and where judgments, decisions, and bargains were made’ (Mitchell 1995, p. 116). Agora presents the ideal public space: politics, commerce, and spectacle were juxtaposed and mingled in this space, where those who are different, whose social perspectives, experience and affiliations are different, can encounter and communicate with each other. Nevertheless, even in the ‘classical and the broadest model’, public space is not open to all. Only a specific category of people is allowed to access the agora. The bodies of ‘female, ageing, foreign, or childish and pre-political’ are excluded from the public realm (Butler 2010).
What’s more, public space from the medieval period in western countries, has been the subject of political control and a spatial expression of power. Under medieval monarchy, it was where ‘political power was staged, displayed, and legitimizes’ (Cited Henaff & Strong 2000, p.3). The articulation of public spaces in seventeenth and eighteenth century is still relative with the values of the dominant class, due to its location for monumental architecture and other landmarks (Miles 2000). In the Late twentieth century, the nature of public space is in fact to carter for the urban development and reinvention of civic identity (Ibid 2000). It is rather ideological than neutral and natural, which is attached to free-market of capitalism or consumerism. Back to modern democracies around the world, yet what we call public space, such as streets, squares, plazas, parks, are actually made by governments to create a spectacle for recreation and festivals. It is as well a key aspect of place-marketing, whose aim is to attract investment and tourism. In each period, public space is designed to fulfill its commercial and ideological roles in civic life, rather than political life. It is a highly instituted space by a dominant power, in which the principle of security is prior to interaction, and recreation prior to politics.
1. Habermas, J 2010, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. 2. Arendt, H 1958, The Human Condition, C h a r l e s R . Wa l g r e e n Fo u n d a t i o n l e c t u r e s . University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
3. Mitchell, D 1995, ‘The End of Public Space? People's Park, Definitions ofthePublic,and Democracy’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 85, No. 1, pp. 108-133. 4. Butler, J 2010, ‘Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street’, Retrieved May 1, 2013, from http://www.eipcp. net/transversal/1011/ butler/en 4. Miles, M 2000, ‘After the public realm: spaces for representation, transition and plurality’, Journal of Art & Design Education, vol.19, Issue 3, pp. 253–261.
While under the irresistible and irreversible globalization, massive resistances and rebellions are revealing a subverting public space. The field of it is much more complex and fragmented, populated by many actors who can at time support or contrast different forms of enclosures, reshaping and reinvention of public space. Not merely the states, private entrepreneurs, NGOs, corporations, migrants and other participators in political movements intertwine with each other to challenge different dimensions of public space.
Fig. 30 Agora- the 'classical' public space in ancient Athens 30
31
02 The neoliberal demise of public space in Athens
33
Dalakouglou,D & Vradis, A 2011, ‘Spatial legacies of December and the right to the city’, in Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D(eds), Revolt and crisis in Greece: Between a present yet to pass and a future still to come, AK Press and Occupied London, Oakland, Baltimore, Edinburgh, London & Athens, pp.7788.
2.1 Private urbanization of Athens
After World War II and the Civil War, Greece launched a series of strategies for rapid urban reconstruction, in which the system of antiparochi gave rise to the greatest urban transition. It was as well part and parcel of Marshall Plan, which aimed at the development of capital in Athens (Makrygianni & Tsavdaroglou 2011). As a construction system, antiparochi brings together landowners and building contractors and promotes private ownership and capitalist development of the country (Ibid 2011). Since its appearance corresponded to the will of post-war governments in Greece, a large amount of unlicensed buildings and construction have been pushed to achieve social peace and control the population (lbid 2011). As a consequence, polykatoikia- an archetype adapted from Le Corbusier’s domino system- became repetitive metropolitan unit for rapid urbanization in Athens and created the most common private residential space.
Fig. 31 Evolution of polykatoikia 34
35
Kaplanos, Y 2011, ‘A n e c o n o m y t h a t excludes the many and an “accidental” revolt’, in Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D(eds), Revolt and crisis i n G re e c e : B e t we e n a present yet to pass and a future still to come, AK Press and Occupied London, Oakland, Baltimore, Edinburgh, London & Athens, pp. 215-228.
These buildings absorb the city within them and can be seen as a vertical extension of the divisions of private property. In turn, the residues by constructions of polykatoikia become legitimate public spaces, except for some main squares proposed by the first plan of Athens in 1833. To a certain extent, the whole city was based on the ‘private’ urbanization. The mechanism of production and distribution of the Polykatoikia has been firmly rooted and remained in a chosen small-to-medium-scale private ownership scheme for some complex economic and political reasons. The success of polykatoikia in offering a pragmatic response to the demands of modernization has resulted in an intense ‘private urbanization’ of Athens. Furthermore, the government of the 1989-1993 period introduced neoliberal restructuring of the Greek economy and society to coincide with the urban construction (Kaplanos 2011). Although the Greek economy experienced a sustainable and successful growth until the recent debt crisis, the flexible forms of employment actually provoked more social inequality and precarity which gradually led to a series of social issues reflected in these scarce ‘public’ spaces.
1987-1995 1962-1987 1944-1962 1929-1944 before 1929
Fig. 32 Expantion of dwelling areas of Athens 36
37
2.2 Problematic public space in Athens 1833 Te r z o g l o u , J 2 0 0 1 , A study of the development, characteristics and uses of open public spaces in Athens from 1940 to 2000, PhD Thesis, Middlesex University.
Even in those residual public space, riots, protests, strikes, and demonstrations are transforming the fixed landscape of Athens into a platform for negotiation, dialogue and even violence. The prevailing spatial domination, policing, and surveillance on the civic life, have led to the fall of its public space. 2.21 Space for politial control- case study of syntagma Square
Syntagma Square is one of the significant squares in central Athens, due to its specific location near the Parliament. In spite of its intrinsic representation of power and dominance and occasional demonstrations, it was once the center of public and social life in Athens. Since its creation in 1846, cafĂŠs have been an integral component in it. Hundreds of peoplethe middle and upper social classes- were collected in the square and concentrated on the social and political discourse, and disputes all times through the day (Terzoglou 2001). Within the past twenty-five years, however, those cafĂŠs tables on the square did not exist anymore, perpetually occupied by marble sidewalks and lawn areas. The construction of Metro in 1991 has totally transformed it to a transport junction. Currently, it has become the main site of protests and demonstrations since December revolt in 2008. The resistance of austerity measures has never stopped since the state officially admitted the economic crisis and accepted the aid of EU in 2011. However, each political action was neutralized the moment it erupted by state and ended up with suppression. Public space is no longer where contributes mightily to the qualities of urban life and political discourse, but a site representing the power of the state and control on civic life through normalization. Syntagma Square has been reduced to a permanent site breeding violence-prone urban life.
1842
1932
2000
2010
Fig. 33 Events and spatial order in Syntagma Square 38
39
1.Makrygianni, V & Tsavdaroglou H 2011, ‘Urban planning and revolt: a spatial analysis of the December 2008 uprising in Athens’, in Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D(eds), Revolt and crisis i n G re e c e : B e t we e n a present yet to pass and a future still to come, AK Press and Occupied London, Oakland, Baltimore, Edinburgh, London & Athens, pp. 2957.
2.Human Rights Watch 2012, Hate on the Streets: Xenophobic Violence in Greece, Human Rights Watch. 3. Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D 2010, ‘After December: Spatial Legacies of the 2008 Athens Uprising’, Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action, No. 10, pp. 117-128.
2.22 Space for exclusion- case study of Ayios Panteleimonas square
Aside from the symbolic meaning of political control, social bias and exclusion are as well common in so-called public space. The past twenty years have seen a dramatic increase of immigration to Greece. It has been estimated that there are one million undocumented migrants in Greece (Makrygianni & Tsavdaroglou 2011). However, migrants are facing an increasingly hostile environment, especially in the context of Greek debt crisis. Ayios Panteleimonas square highly exemplifies their tough situation. The neighbourhood of Ayios Panteleimonas stands out because it accommodated immigrants who were pushed out central areas of the city by police ‘cleansing’ operations for the 2004 Olympics. Unfortunately again, Ayios Panteleimonas square became a target of Golden Dawn, which is a notorious neo-fascist party in Greece. Golden Dawn asserts that “by respecting the spiritual, ethnic and racial inequality of human we can build equity and law in society” (Human Rights Watch 2012, p. 37). Thus, its members have been attempting to establish a “migrant-free” zone permanently stationed in the area, with open cooperation with local police force since May 2009. In the aftermaths of December revolts, Golden Dawn and other right-wing groups intensified violent suppression toward immigrants. They even locked up the playground to prevent migrants’ children from using it. However, ruthless attacks and horrific graffiti on migrants in the neighbourhood were intentionally ignored by the police. The square is completely under the control of Golden Dawn. Anti-migrant patrols are still permanently stationed here to provide assistance in preserving their authority (Vradis & Dalakoglou 2010). The figure below shows that Immigrants abound in the neighbourhood around Athens’ Agios Panteleimon church, but for now they are keeping out of sight .
In Athens, we saw momentary appearance of the many in those political actions, but constant repressions and violence which lead to the inequality on the right to the city and the disappearance of the public for all. Public space is no longer where different groups encounter for political decision but space for rebellions and violence. Moreover, the repression measures taken by the government further destruct the essence of public space and deprive people’s right to access and use it. The actual construction and practice of public space often reflect a different political reality and social biases, instead of openness and inclusiveness. Public space, at its very core, is politicized. It is proposed by authorities and constitutes a controlled and orderly retreat where merely an appropriately behaved public might experience the spectacle created by the authority. Nevertheless, public space should be made for the public. Everyone has the right to access it and be seen and heard by others. The notion of ‘public’, however, is already the consequence of an implicit process of selection. As Fraster (1990) argues, the bourgeois conception of public sphere raised by Habermas rests on a mass of exclusions, in terms of gender, race, and property. Some feminists criticize that the public sphere should not be merely granted to masculinists for political and economic activities, whereas, females are confined within a domestic life for reproductions, to name a few (Scott & Keates 2006). All too often, the inclusion of all sorts, class and racial mingle into the public sphere is still a dream or can merely win through constant social struggles. Public space has become the product of competing ideas about what constitutes that spatial order- control or free, and who constitutes the ‘public’- the authorities or subordinates. To figure out what should be the catalogue of public space and why people keep struggling and claim spaces like these, we need to re-examine the nature of the spaces we call ‘public’ in the current situation.
1 . F r a s e r, N 1 9 9 0 , ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually E x i s t i n g D e m o c ra c y ’, Social Text, No. 25/26, pp. 56-80.
2. Scott, J & Keates, D 2006, ‘Going Public: Feminism and the Shifting Boundaries of the Private Sphere’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 111, No. 5, pp. 14801481.
Fig. 34 Exclusion in Ayios Panteleimonas square 40
41
03 Social practices of commoning
43
Lefebvre,H 1996, Writings on cities, Blackwell, Oxford.
3.1 Potential common through re-appropriation
In the last few years, a mass of spatial practices have further challenged what is left in public space, such as ‘The Indignant’ in Syntagma Square. These self-organized and re-appropriated spaces have highly challenged the notion of public space and arisen doubts on the functions and meaning of public space from the ancient time. Meanwhile, these collective actions have transformed the appearance and form of statutory public space in a physical dimension. Through the acts of re-appropriation, a representational space is rendered above the representations of space -planned, controlled, and ordered space (Lefebvre 1991). This type of representational space demonstrates identifies which are collective and plural in these spontaneous movements. However, what people actually claim is a space beyond the binary opposition of public and private but a space for shared and common uses. Consequently, if public space functions as a mirror to reflect complex social conditions, then common- the new claim of social relation- has manifested itself simultaneously when collective actions are involved in public space. Public spaces, on one hand, have become the arena of an increasing number of clashes, protests and demonstrations that often take a violent and destructive form. On the other hand, the mushrooming of social urban movements is meant to enter into a collective creation and metamorphosis of urban space and everyday life in the city, instead of simple rejection and confrontation. Thus a new common was born.
Kyprou and Patision Park
Elaionas
Navarinou Park
Collective garden in Psirri
Vila Zografou
Syntagma Square 'The Indignant' Fliopsppou
Reappropriation of the beach Metropolitian Park of Elliniko
Fig. 35. Reappropriation practices during the recent five years 44
45
Temporary re-appropriation- challenging the existing spatial order
Permenant re-appropriation-- envisioning a new public space
One of the sufficient protests-‘The Indignant’ which lasted for more than a week in Syntagma square, was organized via the Facebook in 2011. Athens was as well part of the campaign which was sponsored by Spain then quickly shaping the whole Mediterranean network. During that period, protesters set toilets, medical care and other necessary facilities and made a regulation for camping in the square. They challenged the public space proposed by authorities, and organised their own spatial order by exposing their necessity of life out. On 7 March 2009, local residences, as well as activists and environment sensitive people from other neighborhoods, armed with shovels and plants and gathered in the neighborhood of Exarcheia. They have decided to reclaim this urban site -just a few yards from where Grigoropoulos was killed, and transformed the former large parking lot to a community park. Thus born the self-organized Navarinou park. These participators intended to make a truly public space, organized and owned by themselves without the intervention of the authority. Different groups go beyond nationality and political identity, overcome their long-standing divisions and gather there for open meetings, where the layout of the park has been formed, where the rules of the park’s use are determined, where critical political discourses are discussed and different views find ways to negotiate with each other. It has become a new base for the communal assemblies.
Fig. 36 ‘The Indignant’ of Syntagma Square 46
Fig. 37 Navarinou park-From a parking plot to a park 47
Permenant re-appropriation-- envisioning a new public space
In the same month of the birth of Navarinou park, residents in Kypseli and Patissia district and other concerned citizens successfully stopped the government’s intention to transform their neighborhood park to a parking plot. Although riot polices were involved in to assist the parking construction, they finally failed when confronting with a grueling battle through a wall of protester’s bodies. After defending their nest, the ‘community’ which was formed in the event, re-constructed the park with plants and chairs on 28 March 2009, hoping those already precious ‘public’ space can continue in their everyday life.
3.2 The exodus of the common
In Greek society, the common used to be expressed with ‘a certain togetherness and with collective traditions, such as the harvest and some customs such as the ‘liming of the squares, roads and public areas on the islands’ (Anastasopoulos 2012, p. 94). In agrarian time, the characteristic structures which existed in traditional Greek communities, constituted an indispensable part of the strength of Greek society. Besides, these structures helped the Greek element survive under the Ottoman rule, and made significant contributions to the vitality and resilience of Greek civilization throughout the ages. However, to some extent, the decline of modern Greek society can be ascribed to the centralized state bureaucracy and the lack of community structure (Ibid 2012). In spite of this, currently it is still difficult to see the common, as the prevailing view assumes the only alternative to the private is the public, which is manipulated and regulated by states and authorities (Hardt & Negri 2009). Although urban administrations, under the great pressure of continuous revolts, might be forced to supply public good and public space for the qualities of urban life, these provisions in fact operates for the advantage of capital. As it is seen during the last two decades the crisis of reproduction in Greece, even though the government attempted to reform education and enhance other public welfare system, it still decisively failed to reverse the crisis. Because all these measures actually aimed at devaluing, disciplining, and dividing the working class, which was proved by the fact that capital had managed to increase the rate of exploitation and expand its profitability during that period (TPTG 2001). In this sense, the wave of privatizations, spatial controls, policing, and surveillance on the urbanized class are triggering an alternative potentiality to form a new social relation, which will not be dominated by capitalist interests.
1. Anastasopoulos, N 2012, ‘《share》!’, in Dragonas, P& Skiada, A(eds), Made in Athens,13th international architecture exhibitionLa Biennale Di Venezia common ground, pp. 9199. 2. Hardt , M & Negri, A 2009, Commonwealth, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 3. The Children of the Gallery (TPTG) 2012, ‘The rebellious passage of a proletarian minority’, in Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D(eds), Revolt and crisis in Greece: Between a present yet to pass and a future still to come, AK Press and Occupied London, Oakland, Baltimore, Edinburgh, London & Athens, pp. 115-131.
If modern metropolis can be compared to a big factory, then it is where the multitudes are gathered and collective actions are made. Those spatial practices are consistently challenging the role of authorities, and transforming and re-interpreting our cities. The act of resistance itself signifies the claim of a true public space which at earth is common, and as well indicates a new relation and space to negotiate conflicts beyond the public-private dipole. Those self-organized and collective parks elaborate how cooperation of the multitude is accumulated and the creation of collective actions is embodies. By putting human bodies in so-called public space, those protesters actually make themselves political commons and inhabit a new collective within the process. The common is itself establishing through these spontaneous occupy movements, which attempt to best convey the value of the common and integrate it into the practice of occupations.
Fig. 38 Kypseli and Patissia park- a surviving park after transformation 48
49
04 Facade as a tool- precedents research
51
1. Harvey, D 2003, Paris, capital of m o d e r n i t y, R o u t l e d g e , london.
2.Benjamin, W1999, The Arcades Project, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.
4.1 Haussmann and boulevarding
During the 19th century, Paris experienced a radical transformation and tremendous speculative boom. Louis Napoleon, who encouraged direct state control and finance capital, assigned Haussmann to reshape the interior space of Paris. The latter imposed the logic of line, insisted on regularity and set a uniform profile for the city. The new forms of spectacle were especially engendered by a wave of ninety miles of boulevard and monuments in the end. By violent expropriations, previous narrowly built proletariat neighborhoods were cut through and added with trees and luxurious buildings on both sides of the expanded streets. However, his renovation can not be simply viewd as a transformation to the cityscape. Those new apartments, theaters, cafes, and other sites for entertainment along the boulevard actually sprang up to stage the affluence of bourgeois (Harvey, 2003). As Benjamin stated (p.11), ‘The institutions of the worldly and spiritual rule of the bourgeoisie, set in the frame of the boulevards, were to find their apotheosis.’ In this sense, Haussmann’s endeavor corresponded to a securing of the bourgeois order. While within the confines of the city, the circulation of capital was improved through the creation of the spatial configuration and the political power and controll were distributed throughout its homogenous territory.
Fig. 39 Man on a Balcony c1880, Gustave Caillebotte 52
53
1 . TAV E R N E , E D 2 0 0 5 . The last avenue of the ‘Other’ Europe, The Stalinist universe of the KarlMarxAllee in Berlin. European Review, 13, pp. 207-218.
2. Brian, L 1998, The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape, University of Chicago Press,Chicago: pp. 187.
4.2 The Stalinallee and 'people' palaces
Emphasizing on the political and virtual importance of the city, the construction of the Stalinallee in East Berlin began in the 1950s to celebrate the new born socialist state. Assuming a proper political task, this new urban architecture symbolized ‘national in form and socialist in content’ ( Taverne,2005). The façade of those eight-story apartment buildings was firmly anchored and ornamented with classical detail (Brain, 1998). The monumental east-west axis, which is 89 m wide and nearly 2 km long, in line with uniform façade, strikingly resembled the struggling for a united country in the future. In this sense, the Stalinallee functioned as a demonstration architecture and offered an political-ideological target for the advent of noble German working class, as well as their national consciousness and awareness of solidarity.
Fig. 40 The Stalinallee-a monumental axis in East Berlin, 1956 54
55
Scully, V 1961, Modern Architecture: The Architecture of Democracy. Prentice-Hall International, London; Braziller,New York, p.54.
4.3 Karl Max's hof and a communist fortress
Karl Marx-Hof, built by Red Vienna after the First World War, was the most might fortress for the working class families. No buildings than Karl MarxHof could embody the socialist ideology within that historic period. The colossal building was over one kilometer long and designed to contain 1,382 apartments, in which laundries, kindergartens, pools, stores, a clinic, a pharmacy and a post office were included. Its grander block gestured to tell us what it is about. The homogenous faรงade not only marked itself by a proud, dark banner of socialist solidarity, but symbolized the broad Ringroad of the Proletariat (Scully 1961).
However, unlike the two precedents above, which paid too much emphasis on homogenous and grandiose configuration, Karl Marx-Hof, introduced different scales of space to create the common experience. A huge courtyard, which occupied more than three fourths of the area, is even more imposing. In this way, the inner living rooms and open courtyard combined with each other, contributing to form a particular political institution.
Fig. 41 Courtyard in Karl Max's hof 56
57
05 Project strategy
5.1 Hypothesis As argued above, public spaces, on one hand, have become the arena of an increasing number of protests and demonstrations that often take a violent and destructive form. On the other hand, the mushrooming of social urban movements is meant to enter into a collective creation, instead of simple rejection. Confronted with its private urbanization and fragmented properties, thus a new common was born in respond to these urban conditions. In this sense, this project attempts to explore the possibility of common space- a space beyond the binary opposition of public and private, and use faรงade as a principle tool to transform and unify the existing urban fabricstreet and square. A resulting contiguous series of loggia and chambers will unfold in the whole city to achieve the sense of commonality. Even though taking a similar architectural strategy as those precedents, this project remains not only metaphorical as a symbol of the creation of a common by the establishment of homogeneous faรงade, but integrates in both the cityscape and urban life, thus offering a framework for alternative political subject within the city.
Facade as a tool- 1:100 testing models in Elia's workshop 60
61
5.2 Proposal
In general, this project includes two parts: loggia and chambers. Loggia is the framework system installed on existing facade, which is to create an extend/shared space for common use and unify fragmented properties; Chambers are urban halls formed by the loggia surrounding, which provide stages for the new political subject. On one hand, loggia is to form a uniform facade and a neutral corridor along the axis, which will lead people to the chamber in the end. On the other hand, they combine with each other to forge common experience in different levels, instead of a physical common.
Proposal- Loggia & Chambers 62
63
1. Anastasopoulos, N 2012, ‘《share》!’, in Dragonas, P& Skiada, A(eds), Made in Athens,13th international architecture exhibitionLa Biennale Di Venezia common ground, pp. 9199. Karaiskaki Square
2. Hardt , M & Negri, A 2009, Commonwealth, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
3. The Children of the Gallery (TPTG) 2012, ‘The rebellious passage of a proletarian minority’, in Vradis, A & Dalakoglou, D(eds), Revolt and crisis in Greece: Between a present yet to pass and a future still to come, AK Press and Occupied London, Oakland, Baltimore, Agiou Konstantinou street Edinburgh, London & Athens, pp. 115-131.
Site Intervention
Taken into account the depth of the loggia, a strict standard is set for the selection of the sites. To avoid expropriation and protect cultural heritage, Agiou Konstantinou street is chosen since its original width of 17 meters and specific loaction in the left-side of tranangle pattern. It is highly mixeduse street, where most buildings function for commercial, office, housing, leisure and culture. However, some buildings have been abondoned since the economic crisis; In between, two squares- Karaiskaki Square and Omonia Square have been declined to traffic nodes, rather than inviting space for civic life. Thus, two elements from the existing uban fabric-street and square- are choosen for intervention. When further selection, on one hand, newclassical buildings and some buildings with good architectural quality are avoided, such as the church and the National theater along the street. On the other hand, those vacant buildings and open space will be employed. What' more, to absorb more space for communal use, this street are reconstructed for rambling. Motor vehicle can only pass through the minor streets. In this way, the new loggia will continue across the street, extend to courtyard by taking advantage of some vacant space, and finally lead to the chambers.
Omonia Square
Site analysis/intervention 64
65
Located in a highly mix-use district, the new framework pierces through the street and squares in between, and forge common experience in different scales. On one hand, a contiguous loggia extends across the street, and provides an open and common corridor in the street scale, which will lead to the chambers in the end. Within the loggia, on the other hand, it explores different conditions along the axis, and creates multiple communal platforms in the architectural scale. Overall Axonometric 66
67
0
10
20
40m
Street/Square scale of commonality
For the ground floor, since most vehicles have been excluded from the street, a continuous ramblas, which would extend to some courtyards and end in the squares, emerges as the primary scale of commonality. A series of smaller open space, not only brings vigour to the cityscape, but importantly offers a common space for public interaction and expression. In line with the homogeneous facade, it provides opportunities for gathering, socializing, recreation, festivals, as well as demonstrations and protests.
Ground floor plan 68
69
Architectural scale of commonality
The typical plan shows the secondary scale of commonality. The existing functions of those buildings are interpreted as the layouts have presented. Different conditions have been involved when intervention. To some extent, the platform created by the succession of the loggia, unifies and re-organizes those fragmental and independent properties, and breeds a new common. In different partitions, users will share this extended common space. It is a space for social interactions and communications. It is a site for every day life, potentiality, difference, and delightful encounter. Diverse of activities might be host in this communal realm, according to the will of users.
Typical floor plan: part 1 70
71
0
10
20
40m
Typical floor plan: part 2 72
73
5.3 LOGGIA Although symbolized as a neutral form, the loggia goes beyond its configuration. The new structure aims to contributes to form not only the phypical common, which take s the form of the homogenous faรงade, but also a social common place for the inhabitants and immaterial labour, thus offering a framework for alternative political subject within the city.
75
The language of grids have been used to reform the existing faรงade and reorganise different properties. And the average width of the grid is 3 meters and the height of each floor is flexiable, according to the existing building's. Taken account of the inclination of the street, a straight, horizontal roof line for the loggia is kept to achieve the uniformity. To avoid rigidity, the grid of the loggia is slightly modified as it is shown on the elevation. Some parts occupy the height over one floor to create different spatial experience. In general, the new structure is atteched to the existing buildings. However, when encountering with minor roads and some buildings without intervention( like neo-classical buildings and buildings with good architectual quality), that part of the loggia becomes self-standing, as it is shown in the ground floor plan.
Elevation: part 1 76
77
North elevation
0
10
20
40m
South elevation
Elevation: part 2 78
79
Strategy for Loggia
Those intervened buildings can roughly be divided into two types. For those buildings with balconies, the basic strategy is to demolish them and use loggia to extend a much broader shared space. For the others, their faรงade will be modified, and a new entrance to loggia will be set; to protect the intimacy of the residents, a division will be made between private houses and other functional buildings. Meanwhile, any vacant lot and buildings will be took advantage of to extend the communal space. In some occasion, stairs have to be equipped to connect different heights of planes.
strategy for different conditions 80
81
The overall longth of the loggia is up to 470 meters. However, the horizontal sprawl is for circulation, but for the new creation of common experience .Given the privacy of residents and the height difference, the framework is devided into different partitions. In each partition, the owner of the house or the user will decide how to appropriate the space in front. And staircases have been designed to connect different floors and contribute to the social interactions.
Partitons of the Loggia 82
83
Site 1
Site 2
DETAILED DESIGN
Axonometric of the two sites 84
85
A
Site 1
Along the street, four buildings are used for office service, in which one characterizes as the new-classical style; one building remains unfinished due to the economic crisis. And the rest two function for housing.
On the ground floor, a sink garden is designed for rambling. The row of columns shows the intervention to those buildings. For the part without building behind, another row is added to strengthen the new structure. To protect the quality of new-classical building (2 floors), a break of loggia is considered, as it is presented on the second floor. For the typical floor, multiple vacant space is re-appropriated and connected into a uniform ground, such as the abandoned building and the upper space of different roofs. For the purpose of increasing lighting and roof garden, the roof ceilings of those new platforms are kept open. Given the intimacy of inhabitants, in the horizental direction, a division is added to seperate different properties. To further keep some distance from the loggia and their living rooms, some void space (according to the original location of balconies) are left and fenced . In this sense, it can protect intimacy, and at the same time increase lighting. In the vertical direction, staircases are constructed to connect different floors and enlarge the new commual space.
A’ 1
0
10
20m
2
1 Ground floor plan 2 First floor plan 86
87
1
3
0
0
10
20m
20m
2
4
3 Typical floor plan 4 Roof plan 88
10
1. South elevation 2. North elevation 89
Site 2
Along the street, eight buildings are used for office and commercial service; two building remain abandoned, which characterize as the new-classical style yet with poor quality. And the rest one functions for housing.
On the ground floor, different types of open space are designed to host multiple activities. The row of columns shows the intervention to those buildings. For the new-classical buildings, another row is added to keep distance from existing facade and protect them. Besides, the loggia extends across the 'gap' space between buildings and takes advantage of those vacant lots on the lower floor. Those courtyards are transformed into more inviting place. For the typical floor, multiple vacant space is re-appropriated and connected into a uniform ground, such as upper space of different roofs and vacant lots. Each floor will be arranged to hold different activities and events. In some cases, height difference and patio will be introduced to the design. For the purpose of increasing lighting and roof garden, the roof ceilings of those new platforms are kept open. Given the intimacy of inhabitants, in the horizental direction, a division is added to seperate different properties. To further keep some distance from the loggia and their living rooms, some void space (according to the original location of balconies) are left and fenced. In this sense, it can protect intimacy, and at the same time increase lighting. In the vertical direction, staircases are constructed to connect different floors and enlarge the new commual space.
1
B’
To avoid rigidity, the grid of the loggia is slightly modified as it is shown on elevation. Some parts occupy the height over one floor.
0
10
20m
2 1 Ground floor plan 2 Second floor plan
90
91
3
1
0
0
10
20m
2
20m 4
3 Typical floor plan 4 Roof plan 92
10
1. South elevation 2. North elevation 93
Section A-A':
Cutting through private houses, the latitudinal section articulates the relation between the inner space and the loggia. It reorganizes the existing enclosed order between neighbourhood and unify those individual properties. Inhabitants will cooperate and decide how to appropriate the space.
1
Section B-B':
0
10
20m
Cutting through office space and courtyard, the latitudinal section articulates the relation between the inner space and the loggia added above vacant lots. In each partition, this type of loggia space is the largest commual platform, which will offer more opportunities for different social interactions.
2
1. Section A-A' 2. Section B-B' 94
95
This figure shows the common experience in the street scale and architectural scale. As is presented, the loggia is divided into different partitions, which is not for circulation, but for the common experience for different groups. It contributes to form not only the physical common, which takes the form of the homogenous faรงade, but also a social common place for the inhabitants and workers of the blocks. Detailed (de-roof ) axonometric 96
97
Office space is one of the most productive space in the city, while its production is not a tradition of goods but knowledge, and other immaterial work. The new space created by the loggia actually extends a new platform for immaterial labour to accumulate their production of subjectivities, and promote cooperation of knowledge.
loggia in front of office space 98
Confronted with a lack of community in Athens, the loggia space in front of private houses provides alternative mode of co-habitation, and enhances social interactions and communications between residents. At the same time, Fences are designed to protect the intimacy and increase lighting.
loggia in front of private house 99
100
As the most dynamic site in the city, commercial space, especially cafĂŠs, always attract the gathering of people from different positions. The extended platform will encourage more encounter and interaction, where people can meet, produce and share knowledge through communication and exchange.
As the largest communal space in each partition, the loggia space in front of vacant buildings/plots offers more opportunities to host diverse activities. It could be space for parties, open cinema, festivals, as well as assembles. Uses will appropriate it freely.
loggia in front of commercial space
loggia in front of unfinished buildings/ vacant space 101
5.4 CHAMBERS Although born in original public squares, chambers possess another meaning to the city and its civic life. The monumental structure of pavilions no longer represents the power of the governing, but become stages for everyday life. They will be shared by different users, yet to remain open, accessible and symbolic within the space of the city. Meanwhile, surrounded by the uniform faรงade, performers in the chambers form another relationship with the loggia users- to see and be seen. In those open theaters, different events could be hold here, and different political association could communicate here to share common experience. It provides more opportunities for gathering, socializing, as well as demonstrations and protests.
103
Omonia square during the midwars period
Omonia square in 1961
Omonia square in the early twentieth century
Proposal for Omonia Square
Proposed as the top point of triangle pattern by the first plan of Athens, Omonia square has played an important part within the city since 1833. With the historical change, it has experienced some major transformations. Meanwhile, it gradually lost its attraction to athenians. In their memories, it shouldn’t be space for spectacle as the plan of 1961, nor the traffic hob like today. What’s worse, during the economic crisis, it has been reduced to a place for violent confrontation and protest. A subsequent decline of central Athens has started from Omonia square, as we can tell from those vacant buildings and closed shops around it. As learned from its sediment of past and present failures, it is urgently in need of a space for gathering- a space which can accommodate various activities for civic and political life. In this sense, the first step when intervention is to get rid of cars and create a safe environment for citizens. The raised stage and pavilion will provide a new platform for communication and negociation between different groups. The function of the stage will fuse with the homogenous façade and the common atomosphere surrounding. The re-organized planting and pavements intensify the symmetry of the site, which implies the axis of stages and the sense of commonality can go all the way to the edge of the city.
0
Omonia square today
104
10
20m
Plan of Omonia square 105
1
3
0
106
2
4
1 North elevation 2 South elevation
3East elevation 4West elevation
10
20m
107
Spatial experience in Omonia square 108
109
Proposal for Karaiskaki Square
Compared with Omonia square, the role of Karaiskaki square plays within the city is less significant. What’s worse, during the economic crisis, it has been declined to a popular meeting point of drug addicts and social groups with a high degree of criminality. However, as the termination of the loggia, it will contribute to the creation of common experience and promote the new form of political subjectivity. Considering its existing role in the whole traffic system, the intervention won’t change its circulation around, but use the new pavilion as a barrier to form an inward space. The monumental structure not only raises its physical role in the city, but also provides a new stage for its citizens. Within it, different activities and events can be hosted; performers from different political groups will find their own stage to show their position.
0
Karaiskaki Square today 110
10
20
40m
Plan of Karaiskaki Square 111
3
1
0
2
1 North elevation 2 East elevation 112
10
20m
4
3 South elevation 4 West elevation 113
Spatial experience in Karaiskaki Square 114
115
06 CONCLUSION
117
1 . Ko s e l l e c k , R 2 0 0 6 , ‘Crisis’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol.67, no.2, pp. 357-400.
2. Hardt, M & Negri, A 2009, Commonwealth, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Public realm, as with its original meaning in the ancient polis, denotes a space of political activities and discourse. Public, at its core, should be democratic and freedom. As argued above, however, history seems to undermine or never admit the role of public space in political life. Exclusion, political control, creations for spectacle and consumerism have been intertwining with each other to encroach the domain of public space. Meanwhile, the past few years have seen massive protests and demonstrations in so-called public space along the globe. Different groups involve in it and jointly reshape an insurgent one. But all too often, those violent confrontations do not bring out conscious political decisions, but a chaotic and uncontrolled condition. What took place in public space has implied its withering, as well as public realm’s. There is no doubt the fact that Athens is experiencing a critical period of political and economic crisis, which has been reflected in its ‘public’ space. Crisis, however, has been too often attached with negative conflicts. It as well indicates a transitional point in time when a decision is due and must be made (Koselleck 2006). Confronted with the crisis, on the one hand, a resulting collective action brings people from different positions together, and further challenges the institutional public spaces proposed by dominant classes, who are obsessed with security, surveillance and political control. On the other hand, those new bottom-up spaces have clearly indicated a conscious reclaim from multitudes and their open disobedience to authorities, rather than a mere act of defence. If post-Fordism metropolis, as Hardt and Negri (2009) address, in fact operates as ‘of antagonism around the making of the common and their expropriation, enclosure, and exploitation by capitalism’, then the collective actions exemplified in those re-appropriation movements have appealed for and fostered a new one- the common. Although those re-appropriation movements might do nothing better than call for the demand for collective actions and the appearance of a new common, they evoke more deliberation about the possibilities of a viable campaign for the common network. If it is the crisis that collects multitudes, then Athens needs more collaboration and collectivity to be involved in the campaign. Only by creating a broader commonality across the sea of polykatoikia to encourage and inspire collaborations, can Athens make the right decision in the face of its private urbanization, which is still in process.
The new framework formed by loggia and chambers is an attempt to explore and promote the potentiality of the new common within the existing urban fabric. Its homogenous, pure and neutral configuration not only articulates itself, but more importantly maintains alternative common experience of civic/political life and fosters a new scale of commonality as a way to mediate between the binary of private/public. It would be where alternative identities, political subject and relationships are nurtured, articulated, and enacted, which is capable to redefine and reshape the politics in the contemporary post-fordist society.
Concept drawing 118
119
Appendix I ‘The City: A New Centrality’ Workshop
APPENDIX
Urban islands
Group members: Li WANG, Lirong WANG,Ya WANG
As we know, due to its high density and mass production, Athens seems to be submerged by a sea of polykatokia. Meanwhile, it has experienced a serious lack of public spaces in the city center. The foure main green spaces in the centeral Athens can be seen as the islands in the sea. The aim of the project is to create a ‘new island', together with the existing islands to form a green boundary in the center.
The new artificial island could function as both a new public sapce but also a new hybrid centrality of dwelling, atracting inhabitants from the city center and also those who have escaped to the suburban area.Thus we can make room for the regeneration of the diteriorating condition of city center .With this design in 5-hectare.We choose the train station as the location of the centrality, because at this site the train lines divide the city to two parts, on the other hand we can take advantage of the convenience of transportation, by which we can make it an important point to connect the people from both sides and even community from farther areas.land of 30,000 residents inside, there would be about 1.7 square kilometers'newland released out. The centrality could be seen as a combination of three parts: The podium, a new layer of ground for social, public uses; The body, mainly the residential building blocks; The platforms in the middle and the top of the tower, mainly used by the residents. With diverse spaces such as the public/the half-public/the halfprivate areas situated at different parts of the hybrid building, great amount of social activities can be stimulated. Besides, in response to Acropolis and the highest mountain in thec ity of Athens, Lycabettus, we create another two social platform s with the same height of the two hills. 121
A network of green 'island' 122
The position of the new tower 123
Elevation 124
View from the ground level 125
Appendix II Horrizontal Workshop Group members: Mercedes-Elena Araya Garcia, Fan Chen, Lilin Chen, Di Feng, Shenwen Huang, Antonios Lalos, Nina Vidic Ivancic, Qingmin Ye, Xiaoying Wan, Lirong WANG, Jiaqi Zheng
The horizontal workshop aims to speculate on the interconnection of the cities surround the Mediterranean, while at the time considers the sea itself as a territory of political, economic and cultural exchange. Following the tradition of ancient cartography and projects like Piranesi’s Campo Marzio and Rossi’s Citta Analoga, our Mediterranean Cosmos has been composed by a series of analogical and recognizable elements of the given reality, scaled up, distorted and repositioned. Our view aims to investigate the possibility to represent the sea, beyond a mere ‘scientific’ or neutral approach. Therefore, it becomes a project of representation, which remains open to alternative interpretations. The Mediterranean Sea as a network of coastal cities- Mediterranean raster 126
127
As one of the world’s oldest cities, Athens holds its reputation of rich cultural heritage, represented by ancient monuments on Acropolis. Modern Athens originated from the ancient mountain and the triangle pattern left by the first mas-
ter-plan in 1833 has deeply influenced urban fabric. Around it, the carpet of urbanization spreads out endlessly, filling up and overcoming the natural basin by the sea of polykatoikia. More natural land are transformed into urban territory and city grid became more and more dense over time. 128
Mixture of city fabric and building type 129
Appendix III London Workshop: Research on Borough Market
130
131
Figure List
1. Urban sprawl of Tokyo, retrieved 17 July, 2013 from http://img.funnysir. com/funnypictures/humor/4/urbansprawltokyo504f22d9e2a3b.jpg
2. View of the castle in the middle of Hawler,Kurdistan, retrievied 17 July, 2013 from http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/72/Hawler_Castle. jpg
3. Mexico City, retrievied 17 July, 2013 from http://upload.wikimedia.org/ wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Mexico_City-12.jpg
4. Overview of centrial Athens from the north, retrievied 17 July, 2013 fromhttp://www.asisbiz.com/Greece/Agios-Georgios/images/AgiosGeorgios-Prosvasi-Theatrou-Lykavittou-facing-Acropolis-AthensGreece-05.jpg 5. The New Plan for the City of the Athens, designed by Kleanthis and Schaubert in 1833, retrieved 24 November, 2012 from http://www.eie. gr/archaeologia/Gr/layout/images/09/zoom/LEO06.jpg
6. The Klenze Plan for the City of the Athens (1834), retrieved 24 November, 2012 from http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wIVEQVjZHzM/TEuRc8zliBI/ AAAAAAAAZHw/NvnvTgbh2bQ/s1600/K-Klenze1834.jpg
25. Milos Bicanski, photography by Getty, retrieved 19 July, 2013 from http://www.businessinsider.com/graffiti-athens-2011-12?op=1 26. Matrix of project concepts from group members, group work. 27. 2008 December revolts in Athens
retrieved July 24 from http://www.zimbio.com/Alexis+Grigoropoulos/ articles/2/Anarchy+Athens+Greek+Riots+Enter+12th+Day 28. 2011 Worldwide protest network, drawing by lirong WANG 29. 2011 Medditerannean Protest network drawing by Jing Lin (Athens group)
30. Agora- the 'classical' public space in ancient Athens, retrieved January 24 from http://www.thomasgransow.de/Athen/Staetten_der_Attischen_ Demo¬¬kratie/Agora.html
9. The Greek territory in 1920, group work.
31. Evolution of polykatoikia, source: Woditsch, R 2009, 'Plural: Public and private spaces of the polykatoikia in Athens', PhD Thesis, Berlin University of Technology. Retrieved 11 March, 2013 from Digital Repository of Technische Universität Berlin.
11. Polykatoikia on Amalias Avenue [image], Made in Athens, 2012.
33. Events and spatial order in Syntagma Square, drawing by lirong WANG
7. The Greek territory in 1832, group work.
8. The Greek territory in 1913 when the Balkan War started, group work. 10. Expantion of dwelling areas of Athens, re-drawing by group member, data source: Woditsch, R 2009, 'Plural: Public and private spaces of the polykatoikia in Athens', PhD Thesis, Berlin University of Technology. Retrieved 11 March, 2013 from Digital Repository of Technische Universität Berlin. 12. Structure of polykatoikia, source: Woditsch, R 2009, 'Plural: Public and private spaces of the polykatoikia in Athens', PhD Thesis, Berlin University of Technology. Retrieved 11 March, 2013 from Digital Repository of Technische Universität Berlin. 13. Evolution of the Greek Building Regulations, source: Woditsch, R 2009, 'Plural: Public and private spaces of the polykatoikia in Athens', PhD Thesis, Berlin University of Technology. Retrieved 11 March, 2013 from Digital Repository of Technische Universität Berlin. 14. Brief explanation of antiparochi, group work.
15. The repetition of the single units, source: Bing Map. 16. Different types of grids in Athens, group work. 17. Drawing of centrial Athens, group work.
18. Drawing of centrial Athens and its periphery, group work. 19. Drawing of Attica Region, group work.
20. Master plan for Athens/Attica 2021, source: 'Strategic plan for Athens/Attica 2021', retrieved 2 November, 2012 from http://www. organismosathinas.gr/userfiles/file/%CE%A1%CE%A3%CE%91%20 2021/Parousiasi%20RSA_2021_ENGLISH_VERSION.pdf 21. Large-scale infrastructures for 2004 Olympic Games, group work. 22. Circulation networks in Attica, made by group members.
23. View of Athens, retrieved 17 July, 2013 from http://www. k c p h o t o g r a p h e r. c o m / d a t a / p h o t o s / 7 6 _ 1 g r e e c e _ a t h e n s _ deetzmountain_1.jpg
132
24. Burning Christmas tree in Syntagma Square in 2008 Youngth Uprising, retrieved January 24 from http://thetrap.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/ from-december-08-to-the-imf-three-observations-on-an-ideologicaloperation/
32. Expantion of dwelling areas of Athens, re-drawing by group member, data source: Woditsch, R 2009, 'Plural: Public and private spaces of the polykatoikia in Athens', PhD Thesis, Berlin University of Technology. Retrieved 11 March, 2013 from Digital Repository of Technische Universität Berlin. 34 Exclusion in Ayios Panteleimonas square, retrieved July 24 from
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2012/05/2a4/greek-far-right-risecows-battered-immigrants
35. Reappropriation practices during the recent five years, drawing by lirong WANG 36. ‘The Indignant’ of Syntagma Square in 2011, retrieved July 24 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932013_Greek_protests
37. Navarinou park-From a parking plot to a park, retrieved July 24 from http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/navarinou/Interesting
38. Kypseli and Patissia park- a surviving park after transformation, retrieved July 24 from http://nasosbratsos.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/ blog-post_9038.html 39. Man on a Balcony c1880, Gustave Caillebotte, retrieved July 24 from
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustave_Caillebotte,_c.1880,_ L'homme_au_balcon,_Man_on_a_Balcony,_oil_on_canvas,_116_x_97_cm,_ private_collection.jpg
40. The Stalinallee-a monumental axis in East Berlin, 1956, retrieved July 24 from http://www.nogoland.com/wordpress/2009/09/architecturallandmarks-of-the-world-from-vertical-to-horizontal/
41. Courtyard in Karl Max's hof, retrieved July 24 from
http://www.ottowagner.com/sonderausstellung/archiv/2010/wagnerschule-rotes-wien/
133