TCG / SCM - DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE Α.U. IN COLLABORATION WITH TCH AND THE MUNICIPALITY OF THESSALONIKI
Thessaloniki, spanning a long historical lifetime, balances between East and West and develops its character through its geographic position at the intersection of sea and land networks and meeting points of historical civilizations and ethnicities. The uninterrupted urban functions and the Balkan hinterland constitute the main differentiation parameters making Thessaloniki unique among Greek cities.
The exhibition presents the late and contemporary architecture heritage of Thessaloniki, while investigating its lifelong, multiple identities through the current city image. The main concept involves the highlighting of progressive trends that have been applied in successive transition phases towards the contemporary reality. The modernization and its adaptation to local idiosyncrasies are presented in a comprehensive manner both for laymen and specialized visitors. The exhibition aims at the creation of an architectural promenade through the actual city, while sections through time and space offer the possibility of discovering unknown perspectives of the contemporary city.
Featuring architectural projects and urban interventions of critical importance and global impact, the show focuses on the stratigraphy of the place and the way the implementations of the projects have shaped the contemporary image of the city.
Presented in a chronological order, the main units of the exhibition cover the primary ottoman modernization (before 1912), the interwar radical urban reconstruction, the postwar/cold war modernization and the contemporary architectural and urban diffuse. The visitors’ itinerary is linear while the inner organization of each unit is multifocal.
The exhibition is organized by the Technical Chamber of Greece/ Sector of Central Macedonia, the A.U.Th. School of Architecture at the Faculty of Engineering and the A.U.Th. Interuniversity Postgraduate Programme of Museology, in collaboration with the Municipality of Thessaloniki and Thessaloniki’s Concert Hall Organization. Chief curator of the exhibition is Prof. Nikos Kalogirou, A.U.Th. Department of Architecture.