Contemporary Industrial Buildings in Greece

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ISBN: 960-85742-4-2
Pages: 160
Dimensions: 21×28 cm
Editor: Giannis Peponis

An exhibition of Contemporary Industrial Buildings in Greece

Organisational structure and objectives of the exhibition. An exhibition usually has two complementary objectives: to draw attention to works which are of particular value, and to record a collective condition, a way of thinking and acting in connection with the specific theme. This exhibition of contemporary industrial buildings in Greece should also be seen in terms of those two objectives. Each of the buildings presented can, of course, be evaluated in its own right, but the theme of the exhibition is such as to make it even more important that we should examine the exhibits in conjunction with the questions of the role and significance of architecture in industry and the criteria of design and evaluation that apply to industrial buildings. The exhibition focuses not only on the work done by Greek architects in a specific sector, but also on the related activities of Greek industrialists, engineers and managers in giving shape to high-quality buildings which meet modern requirements in terms of the environment, working conditions, productivity and quality control.

Given these interests and objectives, we must immediately acknowledge the thematic constraints on the exhibition: that is, the fact that it does not cover heavy industry and does not review the subject in its historical context. Apart from their significance in economic and technological development, the buildings of heavy industry are of unique architectural interest as structures which order the landscape and as large-scale plastic forms. However, it proved impossible to include them in this exhibition because a much higher level of funding would have been required to study, survey and present them properly. We hope, therefore, that those buildings will one day be the subject of another exhibition.

This exhibition confines itself to small and medium scale units. For that reason, its subject is the industrial building, and not the industrial facility in the wider sense. It seems to us inadvisable to open up topics for debate and publicity if we cannot be sure of having the elementary capacity to explore and prepare them with the care they deserve. The same constraints explain the absence of a historical review in the exhibition.

The buildings were selected in accordance with their fulfilment of one or more of the following criteria: 1) outstanding architectural quality, 2) solutions to new functional and technological problems, including those connected with provision for extensions and modifications, and 3) facilitation of creativity, quality control, productivity and safety, together with a contribution to raising the quality of the technological and human working environment.

The buildings attracted our attention for a variety of reasons. Some were already familiar as a result of their having been published in architectural periodicals and books. In such cases, we judged that a fuller presentation as part of the exhibition would enable a new comparative assessment of the buildings. Others were included because the organisers already knew of them as notable projects in the industrial sector, or as examples of the way in which recognised architects approach the industrial building. A third category was selected subsequent to declarations of interest from the architects, who responded to an invitation published by the Hellenic Institute of Architecture in the Bulletin of the Technical Chamber of Greece. We believe that these three approaches, in combination, allowed us to optimise the process of identifying architectural activity in the sector of industrial buildings. Many important buildings are certain to have escaped our attention, and not all the visitors to the exhibition will agree with our choice. The organisers of the exhibition, and its curator more than anyone else, are in any case responsible for the selection of exhibits and the criteria for their choice.

Giannis Peponis, Panagiotis Tournikiotis, Nafsika Tzanou