In addition to his architectural achievements, the book describes his passion for photography and the fact that he was also able to 'read' sites and define designs through the simultaneous use of writing and redesign.
A monograph about the work of Greek architect Aris Konstantinidis. This isolated, often controversial figure proposed a vision of the world that was considered unacceptable by the dominant culture because it was intransigent and ‘anti-bourgeois’, expressing a form of architecture that was judged to be excessively modest and anti-Classical. Konstantinidis’ radical position rejected the academic tradition of architecture, and pointed towards the world of urban and rural forms of anonymous architecture. In antithesis to the ‘white’ architecture of Rationalism, the use of stone and color on reinforced concrete and on brick solutions which are typical of his work, are statements of a new kind of expressiveness associated not only with anonymity but also with the Ancient tradition. The fact that he worked in Greek state-run organizations allowed him to put into practice what he had learned at university in Munich and what he had seen and criticized during his travels to Greece to study Ancient and spontaneous Greek architecture. The workers’ quarters designed by him in the years 1955-57 for the Workers’ Housing Association and the state-run ‘Xenia’ hotels built in the decade 1957-67 when he was head of the Technical Service of the Greek National Tourism Organization are two examples of series of projects where Konstantinidis experimented with the idea of community living in towns and in the countryside. In addition to his architectural achievements, the book describes his passion for photography and the fact that he was also able to ‘read’ sites and define designs through the simultaneous use of writing and redesign.