Letters to the Mayor: Athens

February 25th – March 6th, 2016

metamatic:taf

 

#letterstothemayor     #letterstothemayorathens     @storefrontnyc

 

Storefront presents Letters to the Mayor: Athens as part of the global Letters to the Mayor project. Each iteration presents a collection of letters by more than 100 architects, addressing the most pressing issues facing their city. 

 

“In a present dominated by controversial headlines, at metamatic:taf we find that it is important to trigger conversations by mobilizing different actors who seek solutions. A reality-check in these tumultuous and exciting times for the city of Athens.” From the curatorial statement of METASITU & metamatic:taf

 

Letters to the Mayor: Athens invited the following architects to write to Mayor Giorgos Kaminis:

 

Participants

A Whale’s architects, Yannis Aesopos, Dimitris Athinakis, Loukas Bartatilas, Campus Novel (Giannis Cheimonakis, Giannis Delagrammatikas, Foteini Palpana, Yiannis Sinioroglou, Ino Varvariti), Xenofondas Dialeismas, Renata Douma (OPEN HOUSE ATHENS), Panos Dragonas, Alexis Fidetzis, Lena Foutsitzi, George Gavalas & John Mourikis (ARCHSET), Danae Georgouli & Filia Glyka, Tatiana May Kallergis, Maria Kaltsa, Yannis Karlopoulos, Navine G. Khan-Dossos, Stelios Kois (Kois Associated Architects), Vassiliki Kotzia, Konstantinos Labrinopoulos (KLab), Katerina Matsa, Loukas Mexis, Marlen Mouliou, Filippos Oraiopoulos, Maria Paneta, Konstantinos Pantazis & Marianna Rentzou  (Point Supreme), Artemis Papageorgiou ((Entropika), Myrto Papadogeorgou (City of Errors), Maria Peteinaki, Eleni Portaliou, Bill Psarras, Elien Ronse, Speleo- / Σπήλαιο- (Fanis Kafantaris, Giannis Grigoriadis, Stavros Mouzakitis, Vassilis Vassiliadis), Thomas Tsalapatis, Augustus Veinoglou (SNEHTA Residency), Georgia Voudouri (medianeras), Eirini Vourloumis, Theodoros Zafeiropoulos, Efthimios Zervas, Alexandros Zomas (Micromega Architecture&Strategies)

 

 

PROJECT TEAM

 

Local Curators

METASITU (Eduardo Cassina, Liva Dudareva, Alina Bibisheva) & metamatic:taf

 

Mayoral Desk / Architect’s Table Design

Iphigenia Papamikroulea

 

Wallpaper Design

George Vousta

 

 

ABOUT LETTERS TO THE MAYOR

 

Letters to the Mayor is an itinerant exhibition that displays real letters written by architects to their city mayors. Initiated by Storefront for Art and Architecture in 2014, the project has traveled to more than 15 cities across the globe, including Bogota, Mexico City, Athens, Panama City, Taipei, Mariupol, Madrid, Lisbon, and Buenos Aires, among others. See here for a list of iterations.  

 

Letters to the Mayor invites 100 architects in each city to write a letter to their mayor as a means of bringing innovative ideas and visions of the city closer to the decision-makers, and vice versa.

 

Throughout history, architects have engaged with this responsibility and the structures of economic, political, and cultural power in different ways and with varying degrees of success. With the rise of globalization and the homogenization of the contemporary city, the role of the architect in the political arena has often been relegated to answering questions that others have asked. 

 

Letters to the Mayor questions this dynamic, and invites local and global architects to deliver their thoughts directly to the desks of elected officials, and simultaneously into the public consciousness.

 

 

SUPPORT

 

Letters to the Mayor is part of Storefront for Art and Architecture’s initiative Architecture Conflicts, a project with the purpose of identifying pressing issues, ongoing conflicts, and design solutions in relation to the most important urban problems today. Architecture Conflicts is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.