PROJECT

Awarded competition entry for the
International Open Ideas Competition for the
Design of the Surrounding Area of the Ancient Theatre A in Larissa | Greece

TEAM

Architects

Evangelos Pournaras
Amalia Vranaki
Caterina Margariti

Consultant

Nella Golanda

Student

Karolos Korfiatis

Ancient Theatre View

Dora Karsiki

The entanglement of ecological and human histories have long-shaped life in the plain of Larissa. As people gathered by the fertile banks of Pinios and settled on the safety of Fortress Hill’s steep contours, climate and topography became the frontstage of urban life. In the shadow of Mount Olympus, the mists of the river inspired myth and mystery, floods opened agricultural opportunities and defined the city’s development, while Pinios’s sound and its light became central to local imaginations.

As the city industrialised, the importance of Pinios as a stage for Larissa’s intergenerational interaction was slowly but surely lost. This was cemented by the river’s diversion to reduce its flooding and the subsequent bombarding of the bridge during war. The river became marginal, as forgotten as the Ancient Theatre before its rediscovery. Pinios was now Larissa’s backstage.

We imagine the renewal of the Ancient Theatre being at the intersection of new cultural and ecological infrastructures. Rivers of Culture aims to reorganise the flow and infrastructural hierarchy of Larissa’s open spaces in favour of a new appreciation of existing natural and human-made landscapes. To do this, the project focuses one scale of intervention on nature and the other on culture. The design for Area 1 foregrounds the layers of heritage found within it, whereas the strategy for Area 2 reconnects the city to its river through a series of green fingers reaching from Pinion into town.

AREA 2 | Green Fingers - Rivers

The Area 2 strategy aims to re-embed the Pinios river into Larissa through a series of landscape interventions. Fingers of continuous planting of deciduous river species and local plane trees stretch from the river into the centre to re-introduce long-lost elements of the river and its atmosphere, its vegetation and water presence. These fingers are the basis for a new pedestrian network that connects important heritage, cultural sites, public-transport interchanges, and open spaces together. Microclimate and pedestrian comfort levels are enhanced by widening footways, crossings that meet desire lines, new wayfinding signage, and new seating to provide places to relax and converse. Segregated cycle lanes provide new safe ways to move around by bike and connect into surrounding cycling routes. A common design language and material palette, that works with the existing materials and urban landscape, is used to unify the intervention through the various scales.

The green fingers meet the installations of Nella Golanda at various points, and this work, aiming to complete the “approachment” of the city to the ancient theatre, is acknowledged, respected, and continued both spatially and narratively with each intervention. The intended outcome of the green fingers is to resurface the forgotten everyday experience of Pinios to return water and nature as frontstage of the Larissa experience.

AREA 1 | The Palimpsest: the historical development of the urban fabric.

The design language of Area 1 echoes and reassembles heritage and contemporary landscapes to create places of encounter and meaning. A plinth, morphologically-informed by the site’s ancient ruins, encircles the perimeter of the theatre. This element varies in width and height as it circles around the theatre to celebrate different facets of the site. It acts as a boundary between the city and the Fortress Hill, celebrating the “edge” of the contemporary city and the transition to the “ancient” city. Towards the Fortress Hill, the plinth transforms into a linear arcade building hosting a gallery, the ticket office, and the principal theatre entrance. Part of this plinth facing Venizelou street is suppporting a demountable linear colonnade inspired by the poplar trees dotting Pinios and the Thessaly plain. This flexible and adjustable filter can frame views to and from the theatre, direct people towards the side entrances, or act as a soft barrier when the theatre is used. It can act as part of the scene, as a background, as lighting and mechanical infrastructure. These demountable structures represent the intermittent human activities at the river - coming to life at different times of day and year - enabling a new flexibility for theatre performances, but also queering the binaries of front- and back- stage, spectator and spectacle.

The cosmic mirror plaza is the main civic space of the proposal and acts as an open air foyer when performances are held at the ancient theatre. Its focal-point is a pavilion, hosting a cafe to welcome people into the space and providing panoramic views onto the hillside park and the Olympus mountain. Adjacent to the pavilion is a pool of water with a transparent bottom that enables ancient findings underneath to be seen by people passing the time by the waterside. After sunset the city’s cosmic connection with Mount Olympus is reclaimed as the water reflects the night skies to bring the stars back into the cityscape as a sky mirror. The square is flanked by four arboretums with differing formations of mature trees to playfully introduce shade, form, and mystery. The overall square is flexible enough to accommodate both the programming of the theatre as well as the overlapping programmes of Larissa’s residents, workers and visitors.

The hillside park behind the pavilion will be enhanced with new features to create an immersive experience that reclaims a lost Thesalian landscape while projecting a future where people can come together in nature. New connective paths follow historical lines to lead to a belvedere, enabling visitors to look out onto the nearby mountains. The park will be a microclimate typical of the Olympus and Pelion massif, combining sclerophyllous vegetation from low lying slopes, with dogwood from the higher altitudes, and oriental plane trees from the gorges and ravines.

Other supporting uses, such as dressing rooms, storage space, and administration offices are placed in the refurbished former military bakeries bringing new life into these heritage assets. The proposed adaptive re-use strategy will be in accordance with all relevant regulations. The linearity of the industrial interiors will be maintained and the original features will be restored. The surrounding streets become pedestrian-priority spaces that transition people from the city to the theatre area.

Phase 2 of the project could see the demolition of 867C, 867A building blocks to introduce a new public space that connects the Central Square to the ancient thatre, rendering this space key as one approaches the theatre from the city. Here is the critical point of the “approach”, an aesthetic integration of the ancient theatre and its surrounding area with the modern city of Larissa. The sculptural approach and design formulation of the space will complete the rhythms of the pre-existing landscape intervention, uniting with the work of N. Golanda, in 1993 in her award-winning work "The Experiment of Larissa: Developing Water Codes in the Centre of the City" Of Larissa ” to read as a continuous space. Her sculptural work commences from references of the waterfalls of the mountainous Thessaly in the Tachydromiou square and evolves into the flows of the Thessalic plain waters in the central Square.

The space will invite passers-by and visitors to sit on the proposed marble volumes under the plane trees overlooking the ancient theatre, replicating the sculptural sandpit and water feature of the Central Square. A water stream, referencing the mountainous settlements of Thessaly, will flow between the marbles. As it approaches the theatre, the stream will end in a sculptural sandpit -nama, where a combination of marbles and water at its bottom will incorporate the excavation findings into the installation.
The two scales, inspired by the historical and natural landscape of Larisa , represent two different conceptions of time - ecological and human - and they meet at the point where Larissa’s new and old towns interface. Here is where the city’s slow metamorphosis begins, where reimagining the connection of the city with the river creates a node for generating new possibilities of ecological and cultural exchange.

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amerikis
psychiko
william king
papagou
kallifrona
velestino
kerkyras
samos
kritonos
larissa