Sunday, January 25, 2009

Renzo Piano reveals his plans for the New Athens Opera

Renzo Piano presenting his project design


Renzo Piano left the greek audience speechless with the presentation of his project design regarding the Cultural Park of Athens that will host at it's premises the new Athens Opera House and the new National Library.

Side cutaway drawing of the Athens Opera
(click photo to enlarge)


Cropped


The Athens Concert Hall was flooded by young people and the coupons of entrance had been given away hours before the presentation.



Bird's eye Cutaway view model of the project. On the left is the Opera house and a Concert Hall and on the right is the library
(click to enlarge)

Side cutaway drawing of the National Library
(click photo to enlarge)

The facade to the Esplanade
(click to enlarge)



Topographic model

Athens,
2015 !


ps. Towards the end of the presentation, a bunch of guys holding banners with the phrase "No more Cement" on 'em, presumably students of the Athens Technical University, intruded the Athens Concert Hall, protesting for what appears to be one of most environmentally friendly projects ever conceived for Athens.

10 comments:

Willym said...

Interesting design - the use of solar energy is an interesting concept within the whole plan.

Willym said...

Sorry Parsi, meant to ask where in the city it will be located?

Parsifal said...

Will, it's gonna be by the coast of Athens, South, where the Siggrou Avenue ends (Siggrou is the avenue that beggins at the Temple of Zeus and goes all the way to the sea).

Parsifal said...

I added a satelite pic of the venue

Ντεμης said...

Dear Parsi I totally disagree. What Athens Opera are you talking about? This location is in Pereaus and has nothing to do with our city! What a disappointment..... (plus I don't like "modern" euro-trash opera houses)

Parsifal said...

In a city as saturated by cement as Athens, even finding an open space to build the new opera house is a wonder! And Faliro and Kallithea (which are the municipalities that will host the Opera House) are definitely not Piraeus...

Anonymous said...

The project will be great, a true intervention at the landscape - cityscape of Athens.Wait until the end of the year for the final design.

Anonymous said...

With Piano's projects "ca passe ou ca casse". I do hope that the Niarchos project will fall in the former category. Also, beware of the expected whinning commentaries of the greek "urbanism connexion mafia". For them Tsumi, Piano, Pei and the rest are just clowns. ONLY GREEKS CAN BUILT DECENT PROJECTS, especially cultural ones, since they bathe since their youth in our "anadelfo ethnos" ethos and tradittion. (And, of course, Athens and the major greek cities are telling examples of the local building mafia's talents and inspiration ) The Goulandris Modern Art Museum (by IM Pei, excusez du peu!) has been canceled because of venomous protests from this same mafia, the same mafia that fights the New Acropolis Museum, keeps the horrendus refugee buildings in Alexandras Ave and has orgasms with Konstandindis and Doxiadis' creations (true greekly ["ellhnoprepeis"] greek architects).
I do hope that the new project will be a utmost success, both in design and, most important, efficiency and friendliness. KATW OI/"KALLITEXNES" / ERGOLABOI KAI OI ELLEIMATIKOI - KOMPLEXIKOI ELLHNES ARXITEKTONES. As pane na xtisoun kanena lamogiojenodoxeio sta nhsia h kammia marmarinh villitsa me iwnikes kolwnes sth Maggoufana h stis Koukouvaounes...

Parsifal said...

Derwanderer is my hero! A real urban guerilla!

Anonymous said...

Sorry Parsi for polluting your blog with my obsessions but EVERY (or almost) important urban project made in grecce by greeks stinks! The Olympic sites (Calatrava exepted), the "magnificent" new airport, the petit-bourgeois "finishing" of the metro stations (lots of marble, of course, we are rich!), Omonoia and Monastiraki squares, Voukourestiou, Kolonaki etc etc.
Luckily enough, as the Niarchos foundation is "private" business, they chose architect and plan. We are eagrely expecting the Homeric Fights in the StE, Greece's supreme administative Court: the clique of pine-tree talibans and failed architects will not let it go. The same pattern worked perfectly in the Goulandris museum case, the unlucky benefactors, fed up with protesting lunatics and so called "tree protectors", after 10 year battle and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees have decided to withdraw the plan (PEI, grentlemen, Pei!) and the stupid collection they were offering. Who needs Monets, Van Goghs, Giacomettis and Bacons in Greece, in a building by the world's leading museum builder? We have the "prosfygika" in Alexandras, the "dazzling" Pinacotheque neat the Hilton, the "fabulous" Fix building, we will keep the 3 "incomparable" bulidings, right in front of the Acropolis museum and, of course, we will leave the entrance of the national Archeological Museum as it is, with it's splendid garden. Oh yes, I forgot: And the Callas residence, on 61 Patission St, will be left to crumble, opera is for fags and Callas was a nazi sympathiser and as "bourgeois" as the art she was practicing, n'est-ce pas?

Serious PS: Athenians that ignore it, SHOULD BY ALL MEANS visit Patission 61, the former Callas residence just to have an idea of how Greece protects and promotes its "artistic heritage". Even if the building was unimportant (but it is one of the most dazzling early appartment bulidings in Greece), even if Callas was just an important artist (and not one of opera history's most influential singers), the way the building is "kept" is scandalous. In the meanwhile, the urban connexion fights to preserve the "prosfygika" for "memory's sake" of course and beacause of its "architectural distinction". SOVARA RE PAIDIA? ANTE G+++++TE!