OVERVIEW

The Athens College of Greece, one of the most prestigious and historical schools of Athens, held a public competition that would introduce a new building in the existing campus dedicated for the field of Arts, giving to the school a sacred place where music, theater and fine arts meet under one roof. To redefine the meaning of the Latin term In Situ, a word used predominantly in the field of arts, A&M introduced a dynamic proposal expressing the creation of a network of arts, flows, and geometries through the formation of two distinctive volumes that communicate within the surrounding landscape.

In the basis of this effort to shape a spatial in situ, the history of Athens College along with the freedom of expression formed the centrifugal force for the creation of a space dedicated to learning and expressing through art, a place emerging from the morphology and historical axes of the existing built environment of Athens College while reflecting on the built and natural existence of the location’s ridge.

The main protagonist in the design was the concept of expression as well as the need to create a ‘vessel’, a white canvas for all the artists in the making, a canvas ready to accept the freedom of expression while accommodating the artistic social concerns of the students. A manifested interesting relationship between rules and their transgression is created between the artist and the work of art where Architecture acts as the implementation means to bring this visualization into life.

Therefore, a narrative was proposed between the expression, the historical landscape, and the distinction among the different uses, forming a new hub of arts, a new place to express and get inspired.