5012_Eurymedon

Student: Aimilia Kritikou
Supervisor: Konstantinos Grivas
University of Patra- Department of Architects Engineering
Presentation date: November 2011

The project proposes an art-centre (focusing on the latest forms of art, such as installation art, video art, net art etc.) placed in-between two areas of Athens that nowadays undergo a rapid regeneration, which followed their complete dilapidation during the past decades. Today, drugs, brothels, illegal immigrants, etc. as well as nightclubs, trendy apartment blocks, restaurants, theatres and art galleries, all share a place in the area, attracting visitors from all over Attica. The centre for Contemporary Art Forms aims to become a crossroad, a passage for the inhabitants of both areas of Kerameikos-Metaxourgeio and Gkazi, as well as a meeting place for the art community that thrives around these areas today.

The architectural departure for the project was my intention to create a series of spaces where emotions are created through the interaction of visitors and passers-by with the atmospheres of the spaces and the works of art they accommodate, which ideally can be site-specific works. I attempted to create a "path of emotions", a cyclic tunnel diving into the underground and emerging again onto the surface of the city, as the main exhibition area which forms a central public square. This is combined with the linear urban-garden passage, an outdoor exhibition area. The building geometry is equally the outcome of the internal logic of the sensorial exhibition space, as well as the forces and influences from the surrounding urban environment.