Lina Stergiou - on Architecture and Events | Point Of View by Architeam.

Lina Stergiou (More interviews from this person)
Architect
country:Greece
website: www.linastergiou.com

Bio

Lina Stergiou is initiator and curator at large of Against All Odds. AAO project is her own concept with a view to redefine and promote Architecture. She is founder and director of LS/Architecture & Strategies, a practice that focuses on active research and inventive design (www.ls-architecture.com). She is also founder and director of Life Strategies, a non-profit proactive design organization committed to strategically designing actions for life.

Her work focuses on the intersection of aesthetics and politics, the manifestation of the unfamiliar in Architecture and the role of the Avant-Garde in the architectural discipline.

Her design projects have been published internationally, have received awards (Special Diploma Leonardo 2009; Diploma of the Russian Union of Architects / 3rd Minsk International Biennale), have been widely exhibited (Women architects in Europe in France, Italy, U.K., Spain and Ireland; Athens-scape in RIBA gallery, London; the 3rd International Cultural Festival in Busan, Korea; the national architectural exhibition of Patras Cultural Capital of Europe2006; the 2nd and the 3rd Biennale of Young Greek Architects, among others) and have received distinctions in international architectural competitions. She is a writer whose work has been supported by scholarships, fellowships and grants, such as the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, the Pratt Institute, the Stanley Seeger Visiting Fellowship in Research of Princeton University, and the Kingston University London. She has edited books, among them Revelation for the Greek Cultural Olympiad in 2004. She is an educator – she has previously taught at the School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens and at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece. She has delivered public talks and lectures at Yale University, Princeton University, Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia Italy, Laval University Canada, International Cultural Festival of Busan, Korea, among others.

She studied Architecture at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens, continued her postgraduate studies in the field of Architecture towards Urban Design in New York (Pratt Institute) and with Doctoral studies in the theoretical exploration of the Architectural Avant-Garde in London (Kingston University).

:: Photo information and credits:

1 > AAO project Banner
photo courtecy © AAO project

2 > AAO project Banner
photo courtecy © AAO project

3 > AAO project-academic workshops: AAO workshop with Parsons The New School For Design, New York
photo courtecy © AAO project

4 > AAO project-academic workshops: Pee Point
photo courtecy © AAO project

5 > AAO project-academic workshops: Pee Point
photo courtecy © AAO project

6 > AAO project-academic workshops: Pee Point
photo courtecy © AAO project

7 > AAO project-academic workshops: AAO workshop with Parsons The New School For Design, New York
photo courtecy © AAO project

8 > AAO project-academic workshops: AAO workshop with Parsons The New School For Design, New York
photo courtecy © AAO project

09-12 > HOUSING IN SCHÖNBERGPARK, BERN, SWITZERLAND, EUROPEAN COMPETITION ENTRY
DESIGN: LINA STERGIOU
COLLABORATORS: ROULA BAKOPANNOU, PETROS FOKAIDIS, LOUKAS TRIANTIS
CONSULTANTS: KAROLOS HANIKIAN, ALEXANDROS BOFILIAS, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
photo courtecy © LS Architecture & Strategies

line

Most recent people interviewed (View all)

Toal O' Muire
Árpád Ferdinánd
Constantin Xenakis
Isaac A. Meir
Kim Herforth Nielsen

Most recent list of themes (View all)

on Architecture and Theory
on Architecture and Competent Authorities
on Architecture
on Architecture and Sustainability
on Educating Architecture
on Promoting Architecture
on Architecture and Events
on Guiding Architecture
on Architecture and Photography
on Architecture and Politics
on Architecture and Skyscrapers
on Architecture and Art
on Architecture and Travel

Kim Herforth Nielsen - on Architecture and Events

My point of view:
on Architecture and Events

Interview Date: 06-04-2011

VIEW the entire interview on VIDEO!

-----------------------------------------------------

What is the importance of Architectural Tourism?

Architectural tourism contributes in a positive way to the architectural profession by creating a history of architecture, by offering a guided tour to specific buildings at the same time by creating narratives. You create narratives of what is good and bad, you create evaluation criteria and apply these criteria in time. Another thing is that it creates certain myths. For instance, if we visit buildings of Le Corbusier of course we feel awe in front of them, so we regard this person as someone who is a kind of hero or a star; it also depends on the personality or the work of the architect. This means that architectural tourism, either consciously or subconsciously, creates myths or strengthens existing myths within architecture.

Now, what architectural tourism does to the citizens, to the wide public, let’s say to the citizens. It creates collective identities. If these citizens live within the city, they know that this city includes some important buildings, so this is a tool to enhance the collective identity of the citizens, of people. That’s why policy makers use, or could use, architectural tourism as a tool for constructing these identities, and by constructing special identities they also construct collective identities at a national or city level.

On the other hand, or in addition to this, policy makers know that by architectural tourism they can strengthen the city economically as well as politically. Because they can strengthen its identity that can also be marketable, and then the city will be in a position to compete with other cities worldwide.

What is the importance of traveling, especially for architects and humans in general?

Traveling is obviously important for everybody and especially for architects because they are creators. Every creative person, and still more a creative profession, has an excessive desire to travel. It is just self-evident. The richer you become as a human being, the more you see, the more people you meet and get acquainted with and familiar with, the more cultures you get familiar with, creativity is further enhanced. So, it’s really self-evident that for architects as creative beings – speaking only of their creative part because the architectural profession has many parts - traveling is really important.

What do you think is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

Architecture as an added value is creating urban narratives: it makes the city recognizable; it creates identity and this identity is marketable and it is a competitive advantage in relation to other cities on a global level. Architecture also creates points of reference that attract people and can also provide images for the promotion of the city on a global level.

:: You are the curator of a series of actions and events titled ‘Ethics / Aesthetics’ for the ‘Against All Odds Project’. Against All Odds is a mechanism that produces thoughts, ideas and actions, abbreviated to AAO project.

What exactly is the ‘Against All Odds Project’ and what is the scope of its activities?

For a wider audience, its scope is to raise environmental awareness as well as to strengthen the social bonds. That is, what do we do on a collective level? Not as individuals, but what can we do together? From a disciplinary point of view, which means for architecture - of course, in its very wide sense as a special practice and not as a building - I would say that it attempts to promote discourse about how architects today can be directly useful to the society and the city, though in a very realistic and direct way. AAO has the character of the absolute emergency, not theoretically, not about what we will do tomorrow but actually about what we can do today, and what we can do even in a very small scale and within our capacities.

There are many times when it is not very clear where it leads to, and this is really important because it does not have a concrete model to suggest as a narrative to an audience and to the architects. But, it just creates the necessary frameworks for new ideas to come about. AAO project is an open platform.

Even if the exhibitions in general are considered as something that create narratives and suggest a model, that is a top-down process, we adopt two principles that work against this type of model. First, that most of our participants are going to construct their exhibit at the Benaki Museum, many of them by garbage material from the city or form the Benaki Museum or from things related to the exhibition. Therefore, this is not about an exhibit as an object that travels within a box over the Atlantic or the Pacific and lands to Athens, we see it and then it is packed again and shipped back. It’s absolutely not this way. It’s and idea locally applied, local parameters are taken into account and it’s constructed in citu, at the Benaki Museum.

Also the project is based on the notion of economy as well as the philosophy of recycling because the materials of the exhibits will be used and re-used, they will not be thrown away. Moreover, materials and parts of the exhibits will be sold and this money will go for public-benefit purposes, will go to public foundations. So, even the exhibition, which is the most concrete part of this project, is really tailor-made and has these principles of economy, hand-made process and recycling I just described.

As regards the other parts of this project, the academic workshops for instance, we do not know where they will lead us. It is an open process. Students and young professionals will decide what they will do within the urban sprawl of Athens. We collaborate with Parsons and Université Paris 8 - CiTu lab and Maurice Benayoun. We have also three Greek Universities: the Athens School of Fine Arts, the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens and the University of Thessaly that are involved in these academic workshops, open process and actions within the city of Athens.

The other part, namely the conferences -the first was held on the 19th-20th of January at the School of Fine Arts and the second will be held on the 6th-7th of June at the Benaki Museum, is formal, but then again the way that the topics and the speakers have been chosen bring up many questions, rather than providing answers.

How did you come up with the theme titled ‘Ethics/Aesthetics’ and what is your point choosing these two words having a common Greek origin?

This project attempts to combine global issues with local parameters. So, the title does exactly the same thing: AAO is a global issue but ‘Ethics/Aesthetics’ is the local parameter. These two Greek words that have been purposely chosen to point out the Greek context of a universal topic.

What is the importance of Architectural Events, like AAO project, worldwide? What are the profits for a city holding such kind of major events?

The AAO Project brings up global issues, issues that are important for the majority of citizens as well as for architects and artists worldwide, but which are applied in local conditions in Greece, and especially in Athens. The importance of the AAO architectural events worldwide is that they apply global issues in local conditions, and research how Athens and the Greek situation, in general and especially now taking into account the economic and social situation we are in, can contribute to this wider global issue. In other words, what people and creators from all over the world can offer by coming here in Athens and what we, the case study of Athens can give back, can offer back to these global issues.

To be more specific, we are dealing in Athens with the neighborhood of Exarheia which has a very interesting urban history as well as much activism and political action. We are having actions in the historical centre, within the historical triangle of Athens.

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for 10 buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

To be honest, I stopped liking buildings lately because they do not have the ability to involve the visitor. They are just technically perfect and they don’t touch me. They might be technically perfect but I don’t see how any of them has the ability to get the visitor or the public involved. They are not alive.

If I were to mention a few buildings, they are really from the ‘60s. The first is the Carpenter Center of Le Corbusier in Boston and the other one is Villa Savoy, again of Le Corbusier. I see their strength and their passion. Passion is missing, in recent buildings of course.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.