Welcoming seven open architectural competitions for the symbolic squares of Kolonaki, Exarchia and Kypseli, as well as for selected new stations of the new metro line 4, announced for the first time by the Municipality of Athens through “Renaissance of Athens SA”. Except that at least the first three should have been auctioned long ago, as required by public works legislation, and not so late at the stage when they are already demolished. Obviously, this decision was made after a powerful wave of protests, especially Kolonaki Square, held on the eve of the 2004 Olympic Games, about which there were disagreements, but in the end, the project, despite any failures and lack of maintenance, was accepted by a wide public and at the same time received recognition in international publications. To ignore the artistic value of architectural works and places that have entered the history of modern Greek architecture and to demolish them without even informing their creators is really a disgrace to Attico Metro, and not only that. I confess that I was not well when the day before yesterday Dimitris Antonakakis publicly stated at the awards ceremony at the Megaro Musikis that “…to mourn means to remember – for anonymous, barbaric, ruthless, unacceptable and incredibly painful, I assure you, you, the destruction of our unprotected architectural work: the square Kolonaki.

But why, out of 15 stations of the 4th line, only these seven squares were chosen, and not for all, since, according to the legislation, these are worthy public works? I also wonder why the category of the idea contest was chosen, with the aim of: studying the main parameters of the topic, evaluating them, highlighting the main synthetic idea. But what exactly does this choice of study mean? Does this mean that they will extract ideas from research that will be awarded, and then do what they want as they see fit, ignoring the authorship of the research, changing it and undermining the autonomy of the architectural work? This is an option that, in fact, allows for any intervention and changes by the race director. I consider it positive that the participation of many specialist consultants is also provided for the completeness of the studies. However, there is no mandatory collaboration with artists to include works of art.

Respect the proposals of the scientists to be awarded and that projects be carried out in close cooperation with the institutions.

Therefore, it is worth respecting the proposals of the scientists to be awarded, and that projects are carried out in good cooperation with the participating bodies, so that the end result has an identity and character, and does not end with an impersonal, indifferent interference in public space.

* Mr. Giorgos Triantafillou – architect.