STUDENTS PROJECTS
PROJECTS2013
Students: Vasiliki Panagopoulou, Rallou Tzormpatzaki
Supervisors: Ariadne Vozani, Andreas Kourkoulas
University: N.T.U.A School of Architecture
Defence date: 08/04/2014
A thousand metres above sea level. Mount Parnitha. Abies Cephalonica. A recent fire's ashes. Sanatorium. Tuberculosis, isolation, aero-therapy. Five storeys of stone and concrete, crumbling. A hundred years of history fading into oblivion. In memoriam.
A hundred years post- construction, we return to the Sanatorium of Parnitha, now an abandoned ruin, in an attempt to salvage the memory of a place where the signs of the June 2007 catastrophic wildfire are still present. A minimum of architectural elements - building remnants registered as nosocomial in the collective memory - are incorporated in a series of new spaces, along a traversing route. The memory of the place is reconstructed through the physical experience of the space; the body's movement, the visual access, the natural elements -sun, water, and wind- constitute the foundations of a synthesis of spaces accessed in sequence. Integrated in the concept are Yiannis Ritsos' "Earini Symponia", a long poem written while the poet was hospitalised here for tuberculosis, and Nekyia from Homer's Odyssey. The space unravels in a cinematographic manner, each domain focusing on different aspects of death, decay and destruction. Finally, the complete synthesis is revealed theatrically to reclaim its fading memory; to render the remnants meaningful and timeless.
