A Casebook of Socially Responsible Projects

EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art: An Example of the pendulum between good and bad design

Esthir Lemi

At the beginning of the “Stay in Touch” project we listed some examples of good and bad design we thought we would examine all the way through this work in progress. To this effect we would all be able to agree at some point that there is both a good and bad side even when the majority believes an emblematic building to be a bad design. The first and easiest approach is based on personal aesthetics and applies equally to specialists, architects and amateurs. EMST, the building that hosts the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens is a good example for presenting these thoughts. We have already submitted the general view of an Athenian with some average knowledge in arts, let’s say the average visitor of this museum. Contemporary Athenians probably remember the pre-renovation landscape, as the renovation started at the beginning of the millennium. Most, however, do not remember the river in front of the building for, since the sixties, it has flowed in its direction towards the sea hidden beneath the city’s main avenues. An abrupt change to the city landscape usually creates a bad impression initially for no other reason but that we upset an inner rhythm we could call normal; eventually the new landscape becomes integrated into our normal space, though we need to remember that it has been formed by architects and not by nature. Moreover, when a change occurs, for example to a structure or a building, the whole system around it changes as well and creates a sort of functional rhythm. With this in mind, we need to look at the ongoing debate concerning the renovation of the front of the building in question from the aspect of the information received by its viewers. After the end of WW2, during the political changeover, an interesting generation of architects in Athens took on the reconstruction of the metropolis. They had both the knowledge of international architectural movements and also that of new building materials; their interest in the construction of functional buildings transformed a small but important part of Athens. The term “functionality” is still of great interest now that we know how important it is to use space and material in their most effective way. What this means in each decade partially changes, but there is a steady foundation that is always valid and is rooted in modernism. On the first paper submitted about EMST we classified four elements that depict social and historical awareness for the average Greek citizen based on stereotypes.

1. a state of severe economic crisis (street art, semi-demolished buildings)

2. the standardized omnipresence of the Acropolis and antiquity (5th century BC)

3. the Aegean Islands with their white houses and blue shutters

4. the intensely bright sun (that fades colours, almost precluding mirrors in its own whiteness and reflection on walls)

However, the few buildings preserved from modern architecture were for a long time underestimated. Rezzo Piano’s Niarhos Foundation (SNFCC) Opera House and Library which were opened to the public in March 2017 have brought an equilibrium to how we need to compare the nostalgia for the past and the requirements for the future of a city. The fear of losing the identity of the city if we move forward seems to extinguish when we think about the needs of the city and its citizens and also create an archive and bibliography about all layers of the past. About the same time, in 2018, Gr Design, a Greek magazine about architecture and design, created a publication where they followed all the “tracks” of the building we now know as EMST, from the 19th century when it was virgin land and the decision for a brewery to be built was made. Knowing the tracks of this building teaches us how to read the footprints of a whole city and in the in-depth purpose of the aesthetics we come to see that a city hosting more than 4 million people needs a museum. The hidden river is one significant element. In Figures 1 and 2 you can see the front side which is at the heart of the great debate of whether it is aesthetically good or bad and what it represents as a socially responsible design; more important than this argument of whether it is pleasing or not is the fact that this side of the building raises questions. While the first impression concurs with the city’s stereotypical connection with Penteliko marble and the emblematic Acropolis, if we think deeper and take a walk around the city traces and layers of its threethousand-year history are evident everywhere. The art critic A. Artinos, in a dedication to T.Zenetos (the renowned architect of the sixties), describes with clarity the perspective of that decade. Zenetos had renovated the brewery with the thought of retaining its functionality even in the event the site would at some point stop being a brewery. This is the brilliance in architecture; Constructing the timely while preserving the future. Artinos writes: “The Syggrou Fix Factory, half-demolished and abused by its renovation into a museum of modern art, was, according to Kenneth Frampton, ‘one of the finest industrial buildings of this century in the world’ and in any case one of the most emblematic in Athens. It is in reality a non-building, a mantle of concrete and glass unifying three pre-existent buildings. A minimal and outright gesture. The idea of unending, non-binding architecture which nevertheless managed to establish a new monumentalism and to organize a new perspective of the city – the linearity of its perspective towards the sea. The Syngrou Fix was in its time a building event and for this reason a building above the Parthenon. In the endeavour to translate into English the term Artinos uses in Greek (συμβάν meaning event or happening) this paper returns to the “tracking” of a building so that it can be “read”, much in the way used in social sciences. Tracking constitutes some of the most significant data to be recovered in modern architecture: landscapes and buildings offer their residents and visitors a juxtaposed reading of the history of their construction and the changes made to the surroundings, while their emblematic status gives them an aura of the eternal.

A brief historical background

The Fix Brewery on Syngrou Avenue was built in the beginning of the 20th century. It was re-designed in 1961 by the modernist architect Takis Zenetos (in collaboration with his colleague Margaritis Apostolidis). Its modification was based on the functionality of of future plans, in accordance with the principles of modernism: “dynamic forms, clear and austere lines, large openings and an emphasis on the horizontal axis”. This was represented to the public through its external shape which resembled a ship heading out to sea in Piraeus. During the seventies the company moved elsewhere, and the building was left abandoned. The Nothern part of the building was demolished to make way for the metro station built on the site. What we know as EMST is the building that was preserved and renovated by 3SK Stilianidis Architects, I. Mouzakis & Associate Architects, Tim Ronalds Architects and the K. Kontozoglou team. Their plan included covering the building’s façade with tiles of the same marble of the Acropolis. The National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) opened its doors to the public in 2016. One of the elements preserved from the original building is the visibility and transparency of the rear façade and in this way, according to the EMST website, the architects preserved the notion of functionality in this building: “The museum’s two entrances, the main one on Kallirrois Avenue and the secondary one on Syngrou Avenue, also establish a diagonal path along the ground-floor plan. The multilevel staircase and the escalators form a luminous circulation space that spans the entire height of the building. The specifications for exhibition spaces dictated their positioning in the part of the building with the most advantageous dimensions on the Kallirrois Avenue side. These spaces lie behind the façade whose main entrance marks the new museum.” The internal view of the Syngrou facade is visible throughout the length and the height of Museum, from the beginning to the end of the escalators. It consists of two layers: the skin of the rendered facade with the windows and the old reinforced concrete-bearing structure. From the rooftop the visitor is provided with a view from a dynamic spot of the city- because of the energy of the building- as an achievement of human intellect and its relationship with its place in the perspective of a contemporary city looking to the future. We hope that the artistic act within the building will activate and constantly redefine, as art can in such a context, models of communication.

Bibliography: Αrtinos Apostolis, Takis Zenetos (Το παράδειγμα Τάκης Ζενέτος) http://leximata.blogspot.com/2007/11/blog-post.html 25.11.2018

Emst official site http://www.emst.gr/en/museum/the-fix-building 25.11.2018

National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens. Gr Design, Special Issue 16, 2018 https://grdmagazine.gr/