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Interwar Athens
This book opens up a dialogue between Seferis’s diary entries and a field that is, at first glance, non-literary: Athenography.
This book opens up a dialogue between Seferis’s diary entries and a field that is, at first glance, non-literary: Athenography. Alexandros Papageorgiou-Venetas, an acclaimed urban planner, Athenian scholar and astute commentator on historical sources, brings a fresh perspective to the seemingly inexhaustible Seferian research, focusing on the Athenian observations of a wandering foreigner who experiences the self-important, egocentric capital with mixed feelings. The commentary on Seferis’s Athenian pages is not, however, confined to urban observations but radiates outwards, as dictated by the original, towards other thematic areas, offering an unconventional, and therefore provocative, intratextual reading. This exploratory approach to Seferis confirms his witty aphorism: ‘art is a boundless solidarity’.
From the introduction to the book, by Mariliza Mitsou
- Pages: 246
- ISBN: 978-960-8399-30-3
- Publication: 2006
- Categories: Books, Essays & Thought, Δοκίμιο
Alexandros Papageorgiou-Venetas
Architect, urban planner and historian of urban planning. Born in Athens in 1933. Graduated from the National Technical University of Athens in 1956. Further training in urban planning in Paris. PhD in Engineering from the Technical University of Charlottenburg, Berlin, in 1972. Professor of the History of Urban Planning at the ‘Raymond Lemaire’ postgraduate centre of the University of Louvain (1975–1985). Visiting professor at the Technical Universities of Stuttgart (1981–1982) and Munich (1996–1997). Member of the Council of Europe’s Committee on Historic Landscapes and Towns (1974–1977). Expert for UNESCO and the HABITAT Centre on the conservation of historic towns. He carried out significant urban planning and spatial planning studies for Chios (1968), the island group of Mykonos, Delos and Rhenia (1973–1974) and the old town of Chania (1978). He is a specialist researcher in the protection and regeneration of historic towns. He enjoys international recognition as a scholar of the urban history of modern Athens. Honorary Doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Athens (1998).
Author of 12 books in Greek, French, English and German, and more than 60 articles on the history of urban planning and the protection of the built and natural environment. Major publications: "Intergration Urbaine" (1970); "Delos, etudes urbaines sur une ville antique" (1981); "Stadtplanung, Entwicklungslinien" 1945-1980 (1984); "Hauptstadt Athen, ein Stadtgedanke des Klassizismus" (1994); "Athens: The ancient heritage and the historic cityscape in a modern metropolis" (1995); "Athens, Essays and Reflections" (1997); "Eduard Schaubert 1804–1860" (1999); "Leo von Klenze in Greece" (2000).
