The best time for a two-day event organized today (18.00-19.00) and tomorrow (11.00-15.30) by the Athens Conservatory with the kind support of the Schwartz Foundation: two days after the official presentation of plans for the reconstruction of the National Archaeological Museum Renowned museum architects, key participants in the recent completion project and modernization of the building of the Athens Conservatory, as well as foreign guests will discuss in the hall “Aris Garoufalis” about “Spaces of culture in the urban fabric”. The reason, of course, is the new era that the Athens Conservatory entered in the fall, providing a number of new, valuable cultural and educational infrastructures, but also what is opening in the largest museum in the country gives an additional impetus to the initiative.

And this is not the only coincidence. As an important part of the two-day conference, among others, the relationship of the architect of the Conservatory, Ioannis Despotopoulos (1903-1992) with the German cultural environment of the 20th century, let’s also remember the strong ties of the winner of the closed architectural competition for the modernization of the National Archaeological Museum David Chipperfield with the city of Berlin , where one of its four offices is located.

From this point of view, the architect and curator Lukas Barthatilas, Ph.D. of the Bauhaus-University of Weimar, dedicated to the life and work of Ioannis Despotopoulos, played a very active role in the preparation of the two-day conference. I immediately ask him about the relationship of the Greek architect with Germany, and he tells me that they are divided into two phases. The first is the eight-year period 1922-1930, which includes Despotopoulos’ visit to Weimar and his contact with the Bauhaus, his studies in Hannover (1924-1928) and his subsequent residence in Berlin. “Then he met the spirit of the era of the Weimar Republic, which defined and shaped him,” notes Mr. Lukas Bartatilas. “He visited the most famous German architectural works of the period, while he understood the social nature of architecture and its relation to politics, elements that influenced his architectural writing in the 1930s in Greece.”

“He was friendly with the cream of West German architecture and engaged in dialogue about the post-war reconstruction of Western European cities,” says Lukas Barthatilas of Despotopoulos.

The second phase begins after the war, when from Sweden, where he lived, Despotopoulos began to visit West Germany. “Then he befriended the cream of West German architecture and took part in a dialogue about the post-war reconstruction of Western European cities and the role of intellectual centers in them.” In 1960 he was elected professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and in 1964 a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. “His study of the Spiritual Center of Athens was well received and admired by his colleagues, who saw in this composition the spatial principles of the ancient Agora in a highly modern way,” emphasizes Mr. members to Athens in 1967. Among the visitors were the philosopher Martin Heidegger and the architect Hans Sarun, the great minds of the time. In fact, at the Saturday session he will talk about the famous building of the Berlin Philharmonic, designed by Sarun. It was completed in 1963, shortly after the Wall was erected, and a Digital Concert Hall was recently created a few meters away from it, i.e. opportunity to watch philharmonic concerts from all over the world and through its screen. After all, Despotopoulos was a more “German” architect, I ask the researcher of his work. “He was certainly a visionary architect who incorporated both the social principles of modern German interwar architecture and the universal ancient Greek and Greco-Christian spirit into his work, designing buildings aimed at the political and social formation of each individual on the basis of the Aristotelian idea of ​​the city. culture and politics. The Athens Conservatory is the most illustrative example of these ideas.”

The two-day event is open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis (address: Rigillis and Vas. Georgiou, 17-19). will be broadcast live on the YouTube channel of the Athens Conservatory.