Urban Island of Music in Pyrgos Hlias

Student: Maria Nodaraki
Teacher: Amalia Kotsaki
Technical University of Grete, Department of Architecture
October 2010

The region of study consists of the 1^st High School of Pyrgos. The school is a monument of modern movement as it was built in 1931, during the famous Greek program of building schools in 1930. The architect of the school is Nikolaos Kakouris.

 

The aim:
This project aims at electing and protecting the monument of modern movement, considering the fact that such a building is a work of art, which enriches Greek cultural heritage and contributes to the maintenance of the memory of the certain place. In addition to this, the premise of this project is to lead to the development of the whole area though new attractive functions as well as to attribute to the residents a vivid urban space.  

The function:
The wish of the inhabitants to maintain the educational character of the old school, the multicultirism of the region and so the need of co-existence of different nationalities, the huge musical tradition of the town and the lack of urban spaces and green areas lead to the creation of the urban island of music ( music school,  municipal music center  with contains a municipal conservatoire, a  library, a small shop, a music hall and a museum of ancient Greek musical instruments), park and square). The elements of the program of the Music School are taken from the Greek Organization of School Buildings.

The architectural proposal:
The road Xanthou crosses the whole building plot and divides it in two parts.  In the one part, where today exists the old school is created the music school. The old school is conserved and all the later additions are demolished so that the old building is transformed to a contemporary school.  The new building is placed opposite the existing one. A yard is created between them. The music center is placed diagonally to the other piece of land, rejecting the regularity of the surroundings.  A park with music pavilions and a big square surround the music center.

The concept:
Though the design I try to research the synthetic structures of the modern movement as it was expressed in Greece in 1930 through multiple artistic expressions ( architecture, music, painting) and interpret them.

The building which is proposed creates a rhythm, which makes it look like a musical harmony and comes from proportional relationships among certain sizes. These sizes are the dimensions of the old building (a at the diagram) and the distance between its columns (x at the diagram).

The result is a united organization that flows like a music composition. The full shapes are translated to music notes and the voids to music pauses. The distances among the different shapes are like the musical meter whereas the linear movement that becomes non- linear is like the musical scale.

It's worth mentioning that no one of the full shapes and no one of the voids look like each other. This happens because in the music of 20^th century there is a continuous changing of the elements that consists the music composition. The musical proportions and the rhythm are evident at the facades as well as to the external floors.

The color of the building is white (white is the color of the modern movement), whereas in the internal are used colors like these which the Greek painters of modern movement use.