BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2016 - NATIONAL PARTICIPATION OF GREECE

#ThisIsACo-op responds to the challenge of this year Architecture Biennale’s theme by highlighting the importance of collaboration, of joining forces, as an essential political proposition in order to deal with the multi-sided current crisis. Moreover, it investigates, processes and displays the multiple fronts of the crisis – the refugee crisis, the urban crisis, the defeat of the right to housing, the crisis hitting the architectural profession– all interdependent manifestations of the strategy for the depreciation of space as a common good.#ThisIsACo-op is a collaborative experiment, an innovative, fresh exhibition proposal, an open, bottom-up workshop. The Greek Pavilion’s curatorial team is made up of the Association members that responded to SADAS – PEA’s open call. A cooperative network was established and undertakes the implementation of al aspects of the Greek participation at the Biennale Architettura 2016, which, in addition to the exhibition, includes a series of participatory workshops and site-specific events.

The Association of Greek Architects was established in 1922 in Athens. The Association’s mission is to promote,disseminate and preserve architecture in Greece, as well as to safeguard the interests of its members. The Association's agenda includes promoting the industry’s distinctive professional identity, protecting architects’professional rights and developing a nationwide organisation.

Large migratory and refugee flows are the consequence of war, economicand political instability.The human flows and their bio-political management create new (yet rootedin the past) space for products and services for the legal and the illicit economyinternationally: equipment, control, restricted areas, newly available workforce.The massive flow of refugees in Greece has come at a time where thecountry’s welfare system is being dismantled by the harsh austerity programs.Toppled by the EU-Turkey agreement and the closure the Balkan route toEurope, Greece has become a prison for refugees. Responding to the crisis,solidarity networks have created temporary housing solutions for their spatial andsocial integration as opposed to the establishment of new camps.Several examples of self-organized spaces, such as Pikpa in Mytilene, the 5thLyceum and the City Plaza Hotel in Athens and the temporary shelters in variousparts of the country constitute such examples of solidarity and inclusion efforts.

A city in crisis, Athens, is a special case study: The Athenian urbancondition is a complex crisis phenomenon, with global, European, as well asuniquely local elements, manifesting itself at many levels: inequality, socialdisintegration, rapid impoverishment and general insecurity, economic collapse,abandonment of the city center and violence. In this context, the neoliberal agendais being implemented with aggressive privatizations, neglect of the public spaceand evictions. Due to the latter a large part of the population is facing housingproblems, exacerbating the situation.While city areas are hard-hit, and the city itself appears to be in decline,experimental social initiatives strive to fill the institutional gaps, and new forms ofcommons, both material and immaterial, are being created.Out of these complex parallel developments, the durability and viability ofthe city are being tested as the city enters a transition towards a new, unknowncondition.

Architects, political scientists, scholars, collaborative initiatives, grassrootsmovements and other entities in Greece argue that prioritizing security andprivate interests over broader social concerns threatens civil liberties anddiminishes diversity in the public realm, transforming public spaces into highlyregulated sites of consumption-based activity.The commons is a general term for shared resources in which each memberof the group has an equal interest. By extension, the term “commons” has come tobe applied to other resources to which a community has rights, or access. We referto particular rights of commons and reserve the name “common” for the landover which the rights are exercised. Land and Public space is a literal commons:the common ground where people come together as citizens, neighbors, or justfriends. The places we share – parks, streets, sidewalks, squares, playgrounds,trails, markets, waterfronts, beaches, museums, community gardens, private andpublic buildings – are the primary sites for human interaction upon which ourcommunities and economy, our democracy and societies depend.

The crisis has greatly hit the architectural profession resulting in massiveunemployment, increase of the exploitation, the violations of working rights andconditions and the growth of migratory flows in search of work, such as the prosperousArab Gulf countries, China, and the global megalopolises of the Westernworld. While taking sides with a global neoliberal agenda, architecture plays aclear role in the current climate of social, financial and political crises and precarity.The architect’s role and the sector as a whole are being radically redefined.In a severe condition of financial and political dependency – both causeand effect of the current environment – small yet noteworthy alternative formsof architectural expression emerge, involving collaborative and participatoryprocesses, self-initiated and community-embedded architecture, alternativeeconomy, intensive and collective-labor, natural building methods, all strivingtowards social, financial, or energy-related autonomy and emancipation.