Costas Varotsos on Architecture and Art

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Based on your experience from the cities you have visited, do you believe that the governments are paying enough attention to the architecture of their countries?

Yes, I believe so, because most of the governments have already understood that with architecture they can also make money. That’s why I mentioned the city management before, for the financial dimension of architecture without being aware of what you place inside the building or if the building matches its environment. People are very interested in this, internationally. We can see countries with difficulties in their economy, like Egypt that has created the Library of Alexandria. Also we can see Dubai making interesting proposals which are connected to this dimension of existential satisfaction. Human creations also have a dimension of “spell against death”. It’s a man’s effort to beat death and achieve eternity through this creativity. However, in the old times, there were signs of carelessness.

Today in Europe, they definitely take care of the buildings to the point where that is possible. Unfortunately, in Greece, we lost a whole part of architecture, the new-classic architecture which was created in the past century and has given us mark of cultural stratification and a basis. Unfortunately, due to the financial status of Greece and the weakness of the country to protect those things, we destroyed a great part of what we actually call architectural historical stratification in Greece. And this costs so much to us, as we lost the reference spots. That’s the reason why we have this kind of architecture.

In your opinion, how is the life of the citizens of a city affected by its architecture?

Architecture affects us in a great point. And that’s because it defines and specifies everything. Architecture is a science and a transverse art that starts from a visual formalistic dimension. But deep inside architecture there’s a practical, functional part. If no one notices that, it can cause huge injuries in the town. We got examples like Omonia Sq, where they tried to design a new square using AutoCad or the program MAX, but when they attempted to apply those designs in reality, they created a social problem. It’s not only an aesthetic, but also a cultural problem. The form of society, the form of a social phenomenon strongly depends on architecture.

We can still remember many mistakes that have been done, not only now, but also from great architects like Le Corbusier, who failed in India as he didn’t take into consideration what we call cultural stratification of the place where we intend to build a building. That’s exactly what architects in Omonia did. They didn’t respect the historical stratification of the square and they tried to apply a two-dimension (2D) image in a three-dimension (3D) center of our town. As a result, the social problem in Omonia was intensified.

Sometimes perfect, but other times really bad. You know, architects, due to their transverse approach to things, they can call themselves from farmers (making the gardens) to spacemen (designing stuff for space). They believe they know everything and, of course, this system has given them the opportunity to create landmarks in the town, so they have the self-centeredness and the egoism to call them great sculptures.

Unfortunately, the co-operation with architects has been terminated, because the specialization and the scientism, meaning the specialization and the intellectuality of architecture and arts, created a distance. That not only happened between architecture and sculpture or art generally, but also in other fields, like medicine and sociology. It happened everywhere. The specializations have created a chaotic system, introversion and suspiciousness. As a result, the existence of a sculpture next to a building is suspicious, because the architect is always afraid of the antagonism between him and the sculptor, whereas many years ago this function was natural. It wasn’t abnormal for them to work together.

Well, despite that, I have co-operated perfectly with architects in America, I’ve worked in Italy and Greece with architects and all I can say is that I had both good and bad experiences from all these places. But I think we need to regain this synthetic dimension that is required to face the city. Today a traffic engineer can start the counting and say: “We have a roundabout where 10.000 cars move per day. But if I abolish this roundabout and make a new design, there will be 100 more cars moving. So it’s in the common interest.” What he does is interference to a cultural web, but he calculates it according to how many cars pass through it. The parameters that define the space there, are many more.

The same happened in Omonia. The roundabout of Omonia was a target non-accessible, a passage that created a mystery, leaving the eye free to wander. The traffic engineers, through an analytic approach, came to the conclusion that the roundabout was not necessary, because the 100 cars mentioned before would be more than the normal number. In this case, it would be better if the cars passing were 100 less, so the area could be socially saved, rather than having a destroyed social harmony.  When you interfere in the city it’s like interfering in nature. Cities are a physical phenomenon. If we say that today in order to check the farming systems you need uncountable information, you completely understand that you can’t predict any physical phenomenon. That automatically means that you have to be careful when acting in the nature, as you can cause great damage. The same happens in the city; cities are also a physical phenomenon like human beings. The cells of the bees are a physical phenomenon too, it’s the bees that make them, it’s a product of nature. So, when we interfere in the city, our attention has to be huge, or else the damages will be catastrophic; take as an example the museum of Acropolis.

Do you believe that art can exist without architectural background or even in reverse?

I have already made some creations into the nature without any help from architects and I have to say that my relationship with the natural element is pretty good. And we’ve both been satisfied. In addition, I have done well with the city too, and I found my kind of connection to the city, which is a natural phenomenon, like we said before. But I strongly believe that the main problem isn’t the relationship between the architect and the sculptor; the issue is that each and every one of us, even the sculptor, has to function synthetically, taking into consideration parameters that were ignored in the past.

Many sculptors in the old times and during the era of Puritanism took a sculpture and recklessly placed it in a square, neglecting at the same time some other important elements. As a result, we had acts of vandalism and negative effects. Contemporary art in the city is actually being under persecution, and that’s because it’s difficult to retrieve the lost relationship between the city and the art. Things have rapidly changed and people all around the world have started to react, something good for me. I believe that we, as artists, must start taking into account where we really ‘put our hands on’, as there might be remarkable damage if we make a mistake.

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Note: The main picture of Costas Varotsos is copyrighted by www.aeginaphotographer.com