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Santa Sophia

Santa Sophia

Santa Sophia

The project treats three distinct concepts in the same move. They all have to do with the past of this city and the past's presence in the fabric. In a technical level the area is proposed to be emptied. The guiding concept of "urban element" is crucial. Hagia Sophia itself, a very important byzantine church, was used by the french urban planner of Thessaloniki Ernest Hébrard as an important reference point of the city. Another important axes, Diagonios street is traced in order to connect the White Tower, the landmark of Thessaloniki, with Hagia Sophia. Nowadays the important urban church is included in a garden area that hides the building's urban role and the church's character as an object. The creation of an urban empty space around it and a new long city piazza would support the character of Urban Element for this important building and also create an important public space for the city. The sitting areas designed in this new urban field form a direct reference to the jewish past of the city. Instead of proposing any monument to commemorate the loss of the city's most important community, and the 60.000 deported and annihilated jewish, the sitting spaces visualize uncanny jewish cemetery structures. Small writings of names of jewish people lost, would be written on hidden sides of the concrete volumes.

 

Competition, First Honorable mention, 2012

In collaboration with Katerina Koutsogianni, Kristy Garikou
Landscape consultants: doxiadis+
Transportation Engineering: Eratosthenis engineers
M&E Engineer: Sfetsos Charalambos

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