K.A. Doxiadis

Konstantinos A. Doxiadis, son of Apostolos Doxiadis and Evanthia Mezeviris, was born in 1913. His father, a paediatrician by profession, served as Minister of Health, Hygiene and Welfare. K. A. Doxiadis graduated from the School of Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens in 1935 and, a year later, was awarded a doctorate in Engineering by the University of Charlottenburg in Berlin. In 1937, he was appointed engineer at the Town Planning Department of the Capital Administration, and during the war (1940–1945) he served as Head of the Town Planning Department and Head of the Office of Spatial and Town Planning Research and Studies (GXPME). During the Occupation, he was leader of the ‘Hephaestus’ resistance group and published a journal, the only publication of a technical nature in all the occupied territories, entitled ‘Spatial Planning – Town Planning – Architecture’.

After the liberation in 1945, he was discharged with the rank of Captain and took part in the Peace Conference in San Francisco, USA, as a member of the Greek delegation. In 1945, he served as a member of the Greek delegation to England, France and the USA on matters relating to reconstruction. Between 1945 and 1951, Doxiadis was one of the key figures in the reconstruction effort. Through various posts, first as Deputy Minister of Reconstruction, Director-General of Reconstruction (1945–1948) and subsequently as Reconstruction Coordinator and acting Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Coordination, he sought to restore the country to its normal, peaceful pre-war state. During these years, he served as Head of the Greek delegation to the International Conference on Housing, Urban Planning and Reconstruction (1947) and, in his capacity as Reconstruction Coordinator, led the Greek delegation in the negotiations on Italian war reparations (1949–1950).

In 1951, he founded the engineering consultancy Doxiadis Associates, a private engineering consultancy firm, with a small team of architects and town planners, many of whom he had worked with during the Reconstruction period. The firm grew very rapidly, eventually establishing offices on five continents and undertaking projects in 40 countries. It acquired the legal status of DA International Co., Ltd., Consultants on Development and Ekistics, in 1963. In 1950, Doxiadis founded the Athenian Technological Group (ATO) and, in 1963, the Athenian Centre for Urban Planning (ACE). Between 1958 and 1971, Doxiadis taught urban planning at the ATO and gave lectures at many universities in the United States, as well as at Oxford and Dublin. In 1963 and 1964, he served as Greece’s representative at the first session of the Committee on Housing and Planning of the United Nations Economic and Social Council in New York, and in 1963 as chairman of the session on Urban Problems at theUN Conference on the Application of Science and Technology for the Benefit of the Less Developed Regions of the World in Geneva.

During his lifetime, Doxiadis received numerous awards and honours. In 1976, he was posthumously awarded a Gold Medal by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. In the final years of his life, Constantinos A. Doxiadis began to experience serious health problems, marking the onset of a long-term, very rare illness [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis] which, within three years, led to total paralysis and ultimately to his death. Doxiadis faced his illness with tremendous courage and dignity, writing right up to the very end and keeping notes on his condition with the aim of assisting future researchers. He died on 28 June 1975.