research project
supervisors: Ariadne Vozani
National Technical University of Athens, School of Architecture
2018

This research emerges from Elias Zenghelis’ (OMA) unpopular project for Koutavos Bay on the Greek island of Kefalonia. The lack of bibliographic material shifts the attention from Kefalonia to Paris and the Parc de la Villette competition. Both OMA projects - the 2nd prize of the Villette competition and Koutavos Bay - are carried out almost at the same time, in the early 1980s. Each project deals with a large post-industrial site and is “conceived as a complex medium capable of articulating relations between urban infrastructure, public events and indeterminate urban futures.” (Charles Waldheim)

Hence, the target of this research is to explore the theoretical underpinnings of the Koutavos Bay project using the Villette competition as a catalyst. The framework which admittedly starts to emerge with the Villette competition, Landscape Urbanism, works as a toolbox.

Waldheim’s quote includes almost incidentally the four main chapters of this research:
1. de-industrialization/sprawl (“large post-industrial sites”)
2. event/program (“public events”)
3. ground (“urban infrastructure“)
4. ecology (“urban futures”)

Each chapter is articulated on three chronological levels; the short period of time during which OMA focused both on the Koutavos Bay project and the VIllette competition, the era starting in the early 1990s with the rise of Landscape Urbanism and extending to current discussions on contemporary landscapes, and the period preceding the Villette competition that aligns with the search for a new architectural approach, distinct from and more substantial than postmodern formalism. The final chapter aims to analyze the Koutavos Bay project through these four Landscape Urbanism principles and identify parallels with the Villette strategy.