The main body of this volume on the architect and urban planner Constantinos A. Doxiadis, a key figure in the first three decades following the Second World War, comprises a selection of his theoretical texts on urban planning and architectural design, accompanied by design drawings and photographs. The editor’s introduction sets the scene for a discussion of the direction and foundations of his ideas, as well as for an understanding of his highly individual personality and the place of his extremely active professional life within the historical context. There are few urban planners worldwide whose work is comparable to that of Constantinos Doxiadis. The vast number of his master plans, the variety of his projects, the vitality of his publications and his international presence with projects in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US, place him amongst an exclusive group of the major figures in spatial planning. The picture created by the extracts from his writings, reprinted in the first part, is then expanded upon through an illustrated account of his life and projects in the second part of the book, complemented by a full list of his publications. This volume is a valuable companion for those seeking to understand the world of grand planning and spatial design in the period 1945–1975 and is aimed at all those interested in recent architectural and planning history, as well as in the history of the connection between geographical ideas, diagrammatic reasoning and planning. It is also aimed at all those interested in the spatial aspects of processes of socio-economic development, reconstruction and related policies.
Author:
Alexandros Kyrtsis
Edited by:
Alexandros Kyrtsis
Pages:
504
ISBN:
978-960-8399-36-5
Publication:
2006
Categories:
Books, Illustrated, Albums & Art Books
Alexandros Kyrtsis
Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis, after incomplete studies in mathematics at the ETH Zurich, studied sociology (with minor subjects in social anthropology and economic history) at the University of Zurich. Bachelor’s degree (lic.Phil), 1978. He completed his postgraduate studies with a doctorate, which he received in 1981 (Thesis title: Regionales System und Globalgesellschaftlicher Wandel).
From 1976 to 1981 he worked as a research assistant and, in 1980 and 1981, as a teaching assistant at the University of Zurich; following his military service (1981–1982), he worked for a year as a programmer and analyst at an IT company in Zurich. 1983–1986: Served as an adviser to the Governing Board of the University of Crete for the organisation of the then-newly established School of Social Sciences. In addition to the University of Zurich, he has taught at the universities of Crete, Thessaly and Panteion, as well as recently at the ETH Zurich. He has been a visiting scholar at MIT (Program in Science, Technology and Society), the Department of Sociology at the LSE, the University of Edinburgh, the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society in Graz, and the Chair of History of Technology at ETH Zurich, with which there has been ongoing research collaboration since 2010. Since 1991, he has taught at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1991–2005 in the Department of Economics and, from 2005 onwards, in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration).
He has undertaken research and consultancy projects on behalf of major banks, reinsurance companies and IT firms, as well as for the European Commission, the General Secretariat for Research and Technology and the Hellenic Bank Association. Most of these projects are directly linked to his research interests in the sociology of technology and the sociology of financial systems. He also curated the exhibition on the work of the urban planner Konstantinos Doxiadis at the Benaki Museum (2006–2007), an activity linked to his work on the sociology of space.
He has published four monographs and edited four volumes. He has published articles in the journals Revue Suisse de Sociologie, International Sociology, Journal of Business Ethics, South European Society and Politics, Istorika, Epistimi kai Koinonia, and the Hellenic Sociological Review, as well as in foreign-language and Greek-language edited volumes. He serves as a reviewer for the journals: American Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Information Technology, Sociological Theory, etc.
