Eleni Bastea

Professor

First, we will examine the general concepts and principles of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism” Next, we will look at a few representative examples of architecture from different parts of the world through the lenses of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism.” We will then turn our attention to examples of modern architecture in Greece and Turkey. We will compare the work of architects Sedad Eldem (from Turkey) and Dimitris Pikionis (from Greece) Finally, we review the urban history of Thessaloniki (Salonica), a city in Greece with multiple layers of history and building traditions.

Quiz

Lecture Handout

Lecture Notes

Architecture 
and the Spirits of Place: Greece and Turkey
Global 
Architectural History Teaching Collaborative 
Professor 
Eleni Bastéa, University of New Mexico

Paris. 
Eugène
 
Atget
, 
Notre Dame
, 
1925

Istanbul, Turkey. Blue Mosque (foreground) and Hagia 
Sophia 
(upper right), 
aerial 
view.
1
2

Istanbul, Turkey. Old 
Galata Bridge, 1954
. In the distance, one can distinguish the church of 
Haghia
 Sophia (to the left) and the Blue Mosque in the upper middle of the photograph. 

Eero Saarinen, TWA Terminal, JFK Airport, 1962, New York. Moving away from corporate rationalism, Eero Saarinen (1910—1961) sought to express the spirit of the times, creating a building that captured the drama and excitement of modern air travel. (The building is currently closed for restoration
.)

Lecture Organization: 
First, we will examine 
the 
general concepts and principles of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism”
Next, we will look at a few representative examples of architecture from different parts of the world through the lenses of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism
.”
We will then turn our attention to examples of modern architecture in Greece and Turkey. 
We will compare the work of 
architects Sedad 
Eldem
 
(from Turkey) and 
Dimitris 
Pikionis
 (from Greece)
Finally, we review 
the urban 
history 
of Thessaloniki 
(Salonica), a city in Greece with multiple 
layers of history and 
building traditions. 

7. 
phr.
 
“
The spirit of place” (or 
genius loci 
in Latin) 
describes 
an intangible quality that is tied to a particular location, a particular history, and a particular culture. 
Abiquiu, New Mexico, 2017

“[For] the Greeks the earth embodied divinity.”
Vincent Scully, 
The 
Earth, the Temple, and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture 
(preface to the second edition, 1969).

“Architecture means to visualize the 
genius loci
, and the task of the architect is to create meaningful places, whereby he helps man to dwell
.”
Christian 
Norberg-Schulz, 
Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture
, 1979, 1980. 

Rethinking the Spirit of Place 
1. 
Recognizing 
that the spirit of place is made up of tangible (sites, buildings, landscapes, routes, objects) as well as intangible elements (memories, narratives, written documents, festivals, commemorations, rituals, traditional knowledge, values, textures, colors, odors, etc.), which all 
significantly 
contribute to making place and to giving it spirit, we declare that intangible cultural heritage gives a richer and more complete meaning to heritage as a whole and it must be taken into account in all legislation concerning cultural heritage, and in all conservation and restoration projects for monuments, sites, landscapes, routes and collections of objects. 
. . .”
Québec Declaration on the Preservation of the Spirit of Place, 2008

“
Long before the advent of literacy, to say nothing of ‘history’ as an academic discipline, places served humankind as durable symbols of distant events and as indispensable aids for remembering and imagining 
them—and 
this convenient arrangement, ancient but not outmoded, is with us still today. . . . 
We 
are
, in a sense, the place-worlds we imagine. . . 
.“

The 
Paradox of Modernity
“There 
is the paradox: how to become modern and to return to sources; how to revive an old, dormant civilization and take part in universal civilization.”
Paul 
Ricoeur
, “Universal Civilization and National Cultures,” 1961. Cited in Kenneth Frampton, 
Modern Architecture: A Critical History
, 
1992, 
p. 314
Giorgio di Chirico, 
The Melancholy of Departure
, 1916

Left: Dimitris 
Pikionis
, Landscaping of the 
Philopappou
 Hill and the Acropolis of Athens, 1954—1958. 
Right: Aris 
Konstantinidis
, Archaeological Museum, Ioannina, Greece, 1965. 
The 
term “critical regionalism” was first coined by architectural 
theorists Liane 
Lefaivre and Alexander 
Tzonis
. The 
architectural historian Kenneth Frampton expanded 
upon their work and established the concept 
of critical regionalism 
within the larger architectural discourse.

“
Alvar
 Aalto, Säynätsalo Town Hall, 1952. 
“Critical 
regionalism 
[. . . ] may 
find its governing inspiration in such things as the range and quality of the local light, or in a 
tectonic
 derived from a peculiar structural mode, or in the topography of a given site. 
But 
it is 
necessary [. . .] 
to distinguish between Critical Regionalism and simple-minded attempts to revive the hypothetical forms of a lost vernacular [p. 21]. 
” Kenneth 
Frampton, "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance", in Hal Foster, ed., 
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern 
Culture, 
1983; 16—30
. 

“A building’s cultural value is volatile, and will depend on the story into which it is asked to fit.” 
Andrew Ballantyne, 
ed
., 
Architectures: Modernism and 
After
, 2004, p. 8. 
Image: Pieter 
Bruegel the Elder, 
The Tower of Babel
, 1563. 

We will consider the following buildings through the lenses of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism” 
Le 
Corbusier, Palace of Assembly, Chandigarh, Punjab, 1955. 
Eero Saarinen, TWA Terminal, JFK Airport, New York, 1962 
Luis Barragán, House and Studio, Mexico City, 1947.
Luis Barragán et al, Torres Satélite, Ciudad Satélite, Mexico, 1957—1958. 
Louis Kahn, Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, 1965
Carlo Scarpa, Brion Vega Cemetery, San Vito d'Altivole, Italy, 1970—1972

Le Corbusier, Palace of Assembly, Chandigarh, Punjab, 1955. Forging a new identity for modern India, Le Corbusier (1887—1965) sought to create an architecture free from any association with the colonial past. 

Luis Barragán, Home and Studio, Mexico City, 1947. 
A 
UNESCO World Heritage site. 

Torres de Satélite (Satellite Towers) seen from the 
Anillo
 
Periférico
 , Ciudad Satélite, northern part of Naucalpan, Mexico, 1957—1958. 
Architect
: Luis Barragán (1902—1988); Collaborators: 
Mathías
 
Goeritz
 (sculpture), 
Jesús
 Reyes Ferreira (painter). 

Louis Kahn, Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, 1965.
Consider the relationship of form and function in Kahn’s Salk Institute. 

Carlo Scarpa, Brion Vega Cemetery, San Vito 
d'Altivole
, Italy, 1970—1972
. 
Consider the role of function here—a family cemetery—and the role of craft and 
material in creating a fine example of critical regionalism. 

Is 
it possible to define a local or a national culture in architecture, especially in cases of overlapping maps of territorial and historical pasts?
How do individual architects view their local architectural heritage, a heritage that reflects a rich historical and cultural amalgam
?

Left: Dimitris 
Pikionis
 
(
1887-1968) 
		          Sedad 
Hakki
 
Eldem
 (
1908-1988) 

Studies of Vernacular 
Architecture
Left: Dimitris Pikionis, Study of the architecture of Chios, c. 1929. 
Right: Sedad Eldem, Drawings  of  the  
Amcazade
  
Hüseyin
  Pasha House 
Yalisi
  in Istanbul. 

Left: Dimitris Pikionis, Experimental School, Thessaloniki, 1935. 
Middle and Right: Sedad Eldem and Emin Onat, Faculties of Sciences 
and 
Letters, University of Istanbul, 1942
.

Left: Dimitris Pikionis, Refreshment pavilion, near the Loumbardiaris church, Athens, 1951—57. 
Right: Sedad Eldem, Taşlik Coffee House, Istanbul, 1947
.

Dimitris Pikionis, landscaping of the Acropolis and Philopappou Hills in Athens (1951-1957). 

Dimitris Pikionis, Refreshment stand at Loumbardiaris church (left) and path to the Acropolis, 1951-57. Athens. 

Left: 
Yannis
 
Tsarouchis
, Banner painted for the Panhellenic Popular  Arts and Crafts Exhibition, 
1949. 
Right: 
Seref
 
Akdik
, Enrollment at School, 1935.

Left: Plan of Thessaloniki, late 19
th
 century.
Right: New plan for Thessaloniki, designed under the direction of  Ernest Hébrard, 1918
.

Left: Dimitris Pikionis, Elementary School on the Lycabettus Hill, Athens, 
1933 
Right
: Sedad Eldem, State Monopolies General Directorate, Ankara, 1934—1937 

Sedad 
Eldem
 was appointed advisor for the design of the Istanbul Hilton (1952), which was carried out by the 
New York-based corporate firm of SOM, 
under 
the direction of Gordon 
Bunshaft
. 

Sedad Eldem, Social Security Agency Complex in 
Zeyrek
, Istanbul (1962-1964). 

Sedad Eldem, Social Security Agency Complex in 
Zeyrek
, Istanbul (1962-1964). 
The project won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1984—86 cycle. 

Istanbul: Left 
to right: 
Topkapi Palace. (1460 CE), Hagia Sophia (537 CE), 
Blue 
Mosque or Sultan 
Ahmet 
Mosque (1616 CE).

Questions: 
As we examine the work of Dimitris Pikionis and Sedad Eldem within their broader context, consider again the concepts of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism.” 
Does the meaning of these rather open-ended concepts change when applied to specific national landscapes? 
Can we talk about multiple “spirits of place”? 
Might there be competing and contradictory “spirits of place”?

We will revisit the questions on the spirit or spirits of place by turning our attention to the city of Thessaloniki today and its multilayered past
. 

Thessaloniki. Kyriakos Krokos, Museum of Byzantine Culture, 1989-1993. 

Thessaloniki. House in Upper 
Town, the part of the city where many of the Muslim residents  lived when the city was part of the Ottoman Empire.

Thessaloniki, Villa Mehmet 
Kapanci
, designed by 
Pierro
 
Arigoni
 and built c. 1898, for the prominent Ottoman Dönme family 
Kapanci
. 

/
Abandoned 
Allatini
 Flour mill today.
 

On 11 July 1942, the 
“Black Sabbath” 
the 
German army summoned 9,000 Jews to Liberty Square, for “registration for labor schemes,” where they were humiliated and beaten. 

The 
destroyed and pillaged Jewish cemetery 
of Thessaloniki
, 
1942–1943.

Thessaloniki. Holocaust 
memorial, 
Alexios
 
Menexiadis
, 2006. 
Eleftherias
 
[Liberty] Square

Thessaloniki. The church of Hagia 
Sophia (1)
 
c. 8
th
 century CE, 
surrounded by the taller apartment buildings. 
1

Thessaloniki. In 
the foreground, the 
Alaca
 Imaret 
mosque (1), 
a multi-dome building set in a square, is now an exhibition space; the 
Yeni
 
Hamam
 
baths (2), 
with one dome mostly visible, is now an art cinema; and the large basilica church of St. 
Demetrios
 
(3) retains 
its religious function. 
1
2
3

Thessaloniki. New and restored market, 2008
.

Thessaloniki
. 
Do 
these buildings capture the spirit of place? How can we judge that? 

Thessaloniki. Byzantine walls and adjacent houses. 
Consider 
the 
juxtapositions
Thessaloniki, 
Anagenniseos
 
St. 
10
, 
W
atercolor 
by Costas 
Gounaris
, 
‘96.

Thessaloniki. Ruins of the Roman Forum 
(1) in 
the foreground. The church of St. 
Demetrios
 (2) (7
th
 century CE), 
Yeni
 
Hamam
, an 
Ottoman 
bath, later used as a cinema (3) (16
th
 century CE), 
and 
the 
Alaca
 Imaret mosque (4), now used as an art exhibition hall (15
th
 century CE) in 
the upper right 
quadrant. 
1
2
3
4

Thessaloniki, 
Alaca
 Imaret Mosque, early 20
th
 
century

Thessaloniki. Museum of Byzantine Culture. Architect Kyriakos Krokos, 1989-1993. Notice the references to Byzantine architecture, in terms of materials, massing, siting and landscaping.  

Thessaloniki. Kyriakos Krokos, Museum of Byzantine Culture, 1989-1993. Council of Europe Museum Prize 2005
.

Thessaloniki. Kyriakos 
Krokos
 (1941-1998). Sketch of the Museum’s reception Hall, Museum of Byzantine Culture. 

Thessaloniki. Roman 
Agora (2
nd
 century CE). 
Cryptoporticus with part of the exhibit Photo Biennale Logos (May-September 2014
).

Thessaloniki. 
Alaca
 Imaret mosque, 15th century, now used as an exhibition hall. The suspended piece, created by the 
Beforelight
 group and titled “
Qr-esque
,” was installed for the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2013. 

Stratis 
Tavlaridis
, Exhibit Soma-
Sema
, 
Alaca
 Imaret  Mosque, Thessaloniki, 
2013

Thessaloniki. George 
Zongolopoulos
, Umbrellas
, installed 
1997. 

Lecture Slides

This lecture examines the general concepts and principles of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism”. It looks at a few representative examples of architecture from different parts of the world through the lenses of “the spirit of place” and “critical regionalism.” We will then turn our attention to examples of modern architecture in Greece and Turkey. The lecture compares the work of architects Sedad Eldem (from Turkey) and Dimitris Pikionis (from Greece). Finally, it reviews the urban history of Thessaloniki (Salonica), a city in Greece with multiple layers of history and building traditions.

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