Rena Sakellaridou – Morpho Papanikolaou

The Hellenic Institute of Architecture organized a new series of lectures by Greek architects titled “HIA Lectures 2005–2006”. The aim of this series was to broaden public awareness and understanding of the work of architects. To this end, prominent professionals were selected and invited to share their views on Greek architecture and present their own work.

Greek architecture today remains a subject of ongoing inquiry. Several issues continue to shape and, at times, hinder its development: the processes surrounding professional practice, the limited implementation of architectural competitions, the relationship between architecture and the broader economic realities of the country, the role and potential of construction technology, the gradual transformation of architects into executors of pre-determined choices made by construction companies, the legacy of the Olympic projects, architecture’s relationship with society, the problematic role of Greece’s artistic architectural and urban tradition, the relationship between contemporary architecture and the realities of Greek cities, the issue of architectural education, the connection between Greek and international architecture, the lack of a coherent strategy for promoting architecture both within Greece and abroad, and the role of architectural criticism. These are issues that often do not support design research itself nor the development of the overall quality of architectural work.
Architecture in Greece today still raises questions that remain unanswered—questions that have already been addressed not only in the West but also in many countries of the so-called “Third World.”

The Hellenic Institute of Architecture’s lecture series aimed to address these questions. The architects invited, many of whom belong to the younger generation, sought both to express theoretical positions on these matters and to articulate the principles that underpin their own personal design philosophy within the context of the built environment.

“Four Themes in One Narrative”

RENA SAKELLARIDOU

She studied architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, from which she graduated in 1979. She completed postgraduate studies at the University of British Columbia (1979–82) and earned a Ph.D. from the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, UCL (1994). She is Professor Emerita of Architectural Design at the School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is also co-founder of SPARCH Sakellaridou / Papanikolaou Architects.

MORPHO PAPANIKOLAOU

She was born in Thessaloniki in 1955. She studied architecture at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (I.U.A.V.), from which she graduated in 1981. She also conducted her postgraduate research at the same university. She has taught at IUAV, participated in the IUAV International Workshop, and is a member of the IUAV Abroad network. She has given lectures and teaches at the School of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). She also curated the design of exhibitions of the Kostakis Collection in collaboration with MOMus, in both Greece and Italy. She is co-founder of SPARCH Sakellaridou / Papanikolaou Architects.

They have received distinctions in architectural competitions and have participated in international architecture exhibitions, while their work has been presented in Greece and abroad, and has been published repeatedly.

Four themes – “the ground, memory and light,” “the anxiety of large scale,” “the primal solid, erosions of the skin and materiality,” and “the reflections of the image” – structure their architectural narrative. In the presentation of the architectural office’s work, conceptual and architectural connections were explored through an evolutionary process that deliberately avoids a linear path. The concepts of architectural space and its transformations, as well as of time, the time that elapses between the first sketches and the realization of the project, run through all four thematic units.

Photo R.Sakellaridou: Φραντζεσκα Γιαιτζόγλου- Watkinson