PROLOGUE
Once, the
city was divided into two parts, the Athenians and the Metics. In the past, the
Metics came with their craft skills. In 2004, they came to build Athens a new
village for the Olympic Games. They were brought in to build the nation, however,
never accepted as Athenians nor part of Athens.
REFLECTION
ON THE IDEAL takes us beyond present Athens into deep historical time. It is
the empty heart, a part of Athens’ identity that was never acknowledged.
Through the landscape of historical concurrences, this is the journey of both
the Athenians and Metics to realise and accept that Athens was and will be
built together.
THE JOURNEY
BEGINS from where it fell, the abandoned Athens Stock Exchange, now, the
Mountain of Refused. It marks the beginning of a Metic’s journey to being an
Athenian, passing through Magnetized Space, which reinterprets the qualities of
the ancient Agora.
AGORA, its
literal meaning of the word is “Gathering place/ Assembly". Centre of
the lower town, its natural place is near the Acropolis. Thus the agora and
Acropolis formed a sort of double nucleus. In practical and political importance the agora
constantly gained at the expense of the Acropolis, until in the end it became
the most vital and distinctive element of the city, the living heart. The
Acropolis became superfluous, a survival; though must remember that one of the
richness things which gave Greek life its peculiar richness was retention and
transformation of archaic survivals. It remained essentially a single whole, or
at least strongly resisted division. It was the constant resort of all citizens
and it did not spring to life on special occasions but was the daily scene of
social life (civic centre), commercial (market) and politics (administration of
justice).
MAGNETIZED SPACE is the allegory of a magnetic field which
will become the new living heart of Athens. With the Acropolis (representing
the Athenians) and Mountain of Refused (representing the Metics) on each end,
the journey is drawn from the symbology of ritual laced by the symbology of
architecture.
MOUNTAIN OF
THE REFUSED is represented by a compact depository of Metic’s life story in
Athens that have never been documented. Each of these artifacts is in its time
directed into the history, present and future. It marks the beginning of a
Metic’s journey.
THE FOREST attempts
"to completely disorient & dwarf the Metics” between the pillars that
rise out of the rectangle plot, below the shades of the great philosophers
1_Pillars take the proportion of the classical Greek order; Doric, Ionic,
Corinthian 2_Great philosophers stand tall on the pillars; of both Athenians
& Metics 3_Simplified concrete
pillars with painted graffiti symbolize present Athens.
THE CAVE
comprises of three cavernous voids intended as a screen for alienated reflection
to prepare the Metics for the Asylum where they will undergo the legal
procedure of becoming an Athenian. Acting on the “subconscious”, from the
Forest, a Metic descend into the underground Caves symbolizing the connection
between the three realities; the past, present and future.
