The construction of the open space

“I have always been interested in the problem of breaking the cube / box, so that it is functional and does not rely on (or aims for) the morphological effect”9 (Takis Zenetos)

This purpose of breaking the cube it is familiar to many other terms that point to the same issue; the tendency for developing devices based on an idea of expansive space, which principal properties are fluidity, dynamism, diaphaneity; concepts that make part of the basis of modern architecture which, in the plurality of its significance, had proclaimed the condition of seeing like one of the principal aims of the new architecture. In this sense, the architecture that best represents this search for spatial continuity is the pavilion archetype, or house Belvedere.

This spatial conception enhances an active exchange between interior and exterior through the dematerialization of the form to get a fluid interaction that brings interior space towards the exterior instead of delimiting it. A starting point in common with the intention that Frank Lloyd Wright expressed as destroying the box, by abolishing the delimited and static spatial units of the past through a new kind of continuous wholeness.

“The open form is a general concept and can not be reduced to any of its possible manifestations, such as ‘transparency’. The open form de-

9. ’Ορέστης Β Δουμανης, Takis Zenetos 19261977, Architecture in Greece Press, Athens 1978, page 7.

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rives from the desire to make each architectural work belong to a more complete global world. This is not necessarily achieved by making the form very complex, but by giving it a potential open character, that is, an expanded capacity for interaction and change. However, the open form has to be rooted, like any other; it should belong to the place and take the circumstantial situation as a starting point, although the ‘new vision’ demands a manifest relationship with what is ‘beyond’. In general, the open form implies a return to the origins, in the sense of extracting meaning from the ‘things themselves’ instead of from a particular stylistic system.”10

The materialization of this spatial conception, allowed by the techniques, then emerging, find their basis in the interest in freeing the build-up mass by distancing itself from the classic forms and the traditional construction procedures, usually conditioned by the partitioning of space. This forceful transformation became on the fragmentation of architectural system that, together with its understanding as a plastic fact, gave rise to numerous paradigmatic examples, in which, basically, the liberation of the mass was obtained,11 both from spatial structure and the façade plane, using an architectural language that deals with proportion, the positioning and the assembly of lines in a two-dimensional plane, which avoids the three-dimensional static nature of the solid character of architecture.12

10. NORBERG Schulz Christian, Los principios de la arquitectura moderna, page 46.

11. Ibídem, page 72.

12. GUASCH Ricardo, Espacio fluido espacio sistemático, page 66.

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The morphological aspect, resulting from the slow but constant transformation of the relief, has made the Greek territory a mountainous chain that sinks into the Aegean Sea, whose numerous islands, summits of this submerged mountain range. Hence, the rugged morphology of Greece and its close contact with the sea, makes possible, from almost any point of view, to look at the maritime horizon. Rugged mountains, large coastal areas and vast maritime horizons, along with the ruinous vestiges of classical architecture, are part of the stereotype established in the classical landscape.