Death Of Monuments Re-appropriate of Public Spaces: The Case Of Athens

Death Of Monuments

Re-appropriate of Public Spaces: The Case Of Athens CITY CULTURE: CONCEPTUAL DESIGN FOR COMPLEX CULTURAL CONTEXTS MANSI DIXIT l MA ARCHITECTURE l UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER

C O N T E N T S

Preface • Basic Introduction And background of the city • Initial Research About The City: Athens

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Re-reading the city • Film Analysis • Artist Inspiration • Unpacking the hidden stories and re-imagining the city: making the invisible layers visible ................................13-22 Developmemt of drawings • Through Models • Through Posters • Through Drawings

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Bibliography

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1. PREFACE

• Basic Introduction And background of Athens • Aims and Objectives • Initial Research About The City

Introduction: Athens As we started with the basic research on Athens city and what are the issues people are facing currently. So here began with the basic information about the name of the city and the history.

Athens has been continuously inhabited for over 3,000 years, becoming the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BC; its cultural achievements during the 5th century BC laid the foundations of western civilization. Its infrastructure is exemplar to the ancient Greek infrastructure.

During the Middle Ages, the city experienced decline and then recovery under the Byzantine Empire, and was relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from Italian trade. After a long period of decline under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Athens re-emerged in the 19th century as the capital of the independent Greek state. As such it is a busy city with lively streets, a full cultural calendar and busiest transportation hub in Greece.

If it weren’t for an olive tree, Poseidon might have been the city’s patron.

According to mythology Athena and Poseidon (Greek god) competed for the title of the guardian of the city.

They each offered a gift to gain favour of its people and the gods, but Athena’s olive tree was deemed more valuable than the salt water spring given by Poseidon, so her name was given to the city.

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Introduction: Athens The project emphasizes on the city of Athens and unpacking the hidden stories of the city, as a birthplace of democracy, having aa global historical cultural values, we measured some of the issues which locals are facing in the city.

The city is evident by the heritage of the classical era, represented by the ancient monuments and the works of arts.

At the point when we unfold the socio, political aspects of the city, there are a few of them I would like to project here; European migrant crises, accommodation, lack of jobs, food crises, medical and healthcare problems, lack of youth education and fundamental needs of social consideration. These are the issues which locals have begun to confront in their everyday ways of life.

Apart from this, the monuments of the city which holds the character of the city are losing their purpose of use and the identity. They are now just the places to travel and not for the locals. For the instance, for the first time in its long history, the Acropolis is no longer organically connected to the city of Athens. During other time periods it was the site of religious observances and festivals, while in others it was the civic capital of the city. It was a place where Athenians lived, worshiped, and did business. Now it is solely and exclusively a tourist site. Greeks go there for school field trips but rarely after that. The site is kind of now really belongs to foreign visitors.

The following picture depicts how the monument has become the place of tourists.

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Aims and Objectives

Another issue was being discovered during the investigation that, the city is full of monuments as we know, but the question is that; Are these monuments really helping the city to overcome with the crises?

Aim and objectives: By digging more into the theory, we understood that the monuments of Athens hold the cultural and social values since the ages and were used by the people to raise their voices or to celebrate their cultural festivals.

But in current scenario they are the only sites for the tourists with the remaining ruins, also they are not connected to the public.

So, the argument here is that the monuments are currently in a dead condition also, in no use of local people. And the purpose of the monuments does not hold the significance. Though what is happening in the public spaces and how they are being used by the people of Athens is actually unique for us.

And there is a need of another type of monument to challenge the historic monuments, and the public space should become the new monument.

Where everyone is obsessed with the monuments and the historical side of Athens but in fact the magic is somewhere else with the public areas according to us.

Conceptually the vision of this project is: 1. To understand the relation between the monuments and the public spaces in the context to the right to the city; as people have lost their public spaces and their rights onto those spaces.

2. So, who has the ownership of the public spaces?

3. And re-imagine the public spaces of the city of Athens.

4. How the public spaces have been re-appropriated and used in their own ways despite of the crises in Athens.

To accomplish the outcomes as an end, we have proposed new open spaces where individuals can have their own spaces and use it as another landmark where there are all the social care facilities occurring. And how the monuments can become the new public spaces which have been ignored throughout the years. It has been represented by the different drawings and posters inspired by the artist and films.

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INITIAL RESEARCH

C i t y T r a n s i t i o n Pictures are showing that how the city of Athens has been transformed through the years. “Today, at its current state, Athens cannot be seen as a typical city but as an exemplary urban case. In that sense, Greek architects are not so much concerned with what is being built, but with the complex transformations that the city is experiencing. “ Aristide Antonas, architect in this picture a man is watching at the urban fabric of the city and feels that how it changed by the time. And it has became the concrete jungle.

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INITIAL RESEARCH After this we have discovered some of the issues and some uncommon observations of the city of Athens: Right to the city: Athens is home to the first known democracy.

Democracy was established in Athens around 500 B.C. It was based on a direct democracy system, in which eligible citizens directly voted on laws.

Voice in Graffitti – Street Art in Rise Street Arts can tell a lot of un-told story that not many people would be able to rise their voice, but sometimes enjoying the architecture is became fracture experience due to not so meaningful graffiti tags, which some of them beyond recognition and not even good street art graffiti, just mindless, spray paintings.

Also poor urban planning and a lack of civil education have turned Athens into a chaotic city, which the recent economic crisis has transformed into an urban jungle full of wonders and dangers.

The jungle’s treasures are many but it takes an exploring eye to understand this city and to realize where its potential lies: in the unity, perseverance and inventiveness of its citizens.

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INITIAL RESEARCH

Public Spaces – who has right to social and playgrounds?

Athens has very limited amount of public spaces for people can combine, blend, or unite gradually, socialise and interact. Privatization intercepts and conquering many spaces as well as economical and political built environment.

Moreover, the public spaces have been militarized by the government.

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INITIAL RESEARCH EXARCHEIA

Focusing onto the different parts of the city, we found one very interesting area,

Exarcheia.

While doing the research on this area we found the invisible layer of Athens’s public spaces, which are owned by the people of who are living in this area.

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INITIAL RESEARCH

Exarcheia is claimed by local people, where there are some of the social

activities are happening onto the streets; like hair cutting, food distribution, medical check-up and the mobile facilities to wash the clothes, etc which is very unique in itself. So basically, every social care is now happening on the street.

Educational Services

Mobile washing servise happening on the street:

Hair cutting on the street

Food distribution 11

2. RE-READING THE CITY

• Film Inspiration • Artist Inspiration • Unpacking the hidden stories and re-imagining the city: making the invisible layers visible; – Through Models – Through Posters – Through Drawings

FILM INSPIRATION While going through the history we were also looking at some of the documentaries such as; future suspended, Roma and other BBC films.

But our major focus was on the film Roma by Federico Fellini, which was about a young man named Fellini, who comes to the Rome and observes that how the city has been changed throughout these years physically and socially.

This movie has inspired me as few of the scenes really connect to our main body.

Where there is a reference about how the common meeting places have been ignored by the locals and how it has lost its significance throughout the years.

One of the instance from the film, was a scene from the movie where the guy says about the monument which was used for the gatherings in the past but now it’s the only place left for the birds to sit on. And this really stroked our minds that this could also relate to Athens and its monuments.`

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ARTIST INSPIRATION

Consequently, now we began to depicting these issues into the drawings and posters.

For the poster we were considering the works of art of the extraordinary artist Giorgio de Chirico.

He was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. His most well-known works often feature Roman arcades, long shadows, mannequins, trains, and illogical perspective.

De Chirico’s best-known works are the paintings of his metaphysical period. In them he developed a repertoire of motifs—empty arcades, towers, elongated shadows, mannequins, and trains among others—that he arranged to create “images of forlornness and emptiness” that ironically also convey a feeling of “power and freedom”.

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UNPACKING THE HIDDEN STORIES AND RE-IMAGINING THE CITY: MAKING THE INVISIBLE LAYERS VISIBLE • Through Models We started to respond to these issues with making the models.

The initial model is representation of the initial information of the city, which is showing the power of government, trapped people who are not occupying their spaces in public places and the area like Exarcheia.

Here these orange piece is showing the exarxheia, where some of these kind of places are trying to come out.

• Through Drawings We started to put our initial ideas into the drawings which were the clear representation of the hidden stories of the city.

Few of them shows the imagination of the newly imagined Athens by us.

So here we have tried to portray the current and the new imagined city of Athens.

• Through Posters The posters are the basic inspiration from the artist Chirico.

They display the similar context of Athens and the very initial thoughts.

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THROUGH MODELS

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Model: 2

THROUGH MODELS

This model is the outcome of the intervention of this project.

Here the wooden thin border indicates the power of government of Athens and the thread shows that the people of the city have been trapped and got the boundaries of the government. So, the orange coloured blocks indicates the places like exarcia which is trying to create their own identity in this chaos.

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THROUGH MODELS

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THROUGH POSTERS These are some of the examples of the posters we tried after getting the inspiration from the artist Chirico.

Poster trial: 1

Poster trial: 3

Poster trial: 2

Poster trial: 4 16 19 12

THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 1 This drawing is depicting the city of Athens and its remaining ruins on the upper part. While the lower part is illustrating the new, reimagined city of Athens and its invisible elements.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 2 Re-imagined city with having the connection between the old and new monuments.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 3 Re-imagined city where people of the city are trying to find their own spaces in the voids and depicting the movements.

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2. Development Of Drawings • Through Posters • Through Drawings

THROUGH POSTERS

Final Poster: 1

Final Poster: 1 24

THROUGH POSTERS

Final Poster: 3

Final Poster: 4 25

THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 4 Re-imagined city with having the connection between the old and new monuments.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 5 Re-imagined city where the black squares showing the new public spaces and people are claiming their rights to the city.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 6 Proposed public spaces which will be utilized by the social services by the locals. here the black dots and lines are depicting the movement and the connections between the spaces of social cares services.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 7 The purpose of this drawing was to show that the monuments are neglected by the local people. And the social care services are at the focal point. Which is depicting the new monument.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 8 This drawing is a developed drawing of the architecture of the city and the public spaces of newly imagined city of Athens.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS

Drawing 9 This one is showing the 5 major squares of the city. where in the small black squares showing that public square with the different services should be all over the athens and not be limited to the one particular area, or square.

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Drawing 10 In this drawing we have tried to depict the two phase of the city. The upper part is showing the power of architecture of Athens where the life is totally frozen. But the actual life, the magic is at the lower part, where all the activites are happening.

So basically, the lower part is showing the power of life.

THROUGH DRAWINGS

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THROUGH DRAWINGS Drawing 11 This is the drawing which is showing the livenss at the public spaces where people come and have the needed social care and support from the NGO’s, local or private initiatives and organisations.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS

Final Drawing 12 This is the drawing which is showing the livenss at the public spaces where people come and have the needed social care and support from the NGO’s, local or private initiatives and organisations.

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THROUGH DRAWINGS

Drawing 13 This is the tranformation and the developed drawing of the previous drawing. which shows the greek architectural side of the city and the lower part shows the life in athens, where all the activities are happening on the street or main squares.

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Drawing 14 In this drawing the major activities have been displayed; medical service, food distribution service, mobile laundry and street hair cutting service. these services are also connected to each other by people of Athens.

THROUGH DRAWINGS

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Drawing 15

THROUGH DRAWINGS

This drawing shows the major divided four services on which i have worked upon and how would it work at a public space or in a monument.

Also the following four drawings are the series of designs of the four different moments, where the upper part of the each drawing indicates the map of athens and how the public squares are connected to each other by the people of the ctiy.

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Drawing 16

THROUGH DRAWINGS

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THROUGH DRAWINGS

Drawing 17 In this particular piece of drawing the washing service is located inside of the monuments and in the surroundings of the historical place.

So here I am allowing the city people into the dead monuments so that they can become live again by the people of the city and not just stay as a tourist place.

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Drawing 18

THROUGH DRAWINGS

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Drawing 19

THROUGH DRAWINGS

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

REFERENCES

Websites: https://www.britannica.com/place/Athens/The-Acropolis https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/greece-financial-crisis-still-evokes-pain-and-fear-inathens.html https://www.jstor.org/stable/41940966?seq=1 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-15393834/greek-debt-crisis-violenceerupts-at-athens-protest https://greeking.me/blog/visiting-athens/item/151-a-guide-to-athens-square#:~:text=Today%20we%20explore%20six%20of,are%20smaller%20in%20size%20but https://www.athensguide.com/exarchia/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarcheia https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-attack-on-exarchia-an-anarchist-refugein-athens https://www.annieanywhere.com/athens-insiders-uncover-the-hidden-stories-of-thecity/ https://www.airbnb.co.in/experiences/934947Tur aut accum rem ut facerfero eost a nos molor sinvend itibersperum ullorro et fuga. Aceri blaborehenia volut fuga. Cabori nosapid mint est id moluptatures rem ipitium doloressi delesen

Artist Inspiration Giorgio de Chirico

Film Inspiration

Roma by Federico Fellini

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Death Of Monuments

Re-appropriate of Public Spaces: The Case Of Athens CITY CULTURE: CONCEPTUAL DESIGN FOR COMPLEX CULTURAL CONTEXTS MANSI DIXIT l MA ARCHITECTURE l UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER