Aris Konstantinidis Within and Without Greece

Aris Konstantinidis, Hotel ‘Triton’ on Andros (1958).

Photograph Credit: : Aris Konstantinidis, © Aris Konstantinidis’s private archive

A talk by Dr. Stelios Giamarelos

Presented in collaboration with the Hellenic Centre, London

2nd of October,2025.

Aris Konstantinidis (1913–1993) is one of the few Greek architects to have gained international recognition without building a single project outside his native country. Consequently, his work has often been viewed either through the inward-looking lens of 'Greekness' or as a distinctive fusion of modernism and local cultural identity. However, this focus has tended to obscure the outward-facing aspects of his publishing and teaching activities beyond Greece.

This talk will contrast the introspective self-image presented in Konstantinidis’s autobiography and later writings in Greece with the more outward-looking perspectives found in his earlier contributions to European architectural journals. These two personas – the domestic recluse and the internationally engaged intellectual – frequently stood in tension. While he may have appeared isolated within Greece, he found like-minded peers when publishing, lecturing, or exhibiting his work abroad.

Meanwhile, the lack of comprehensive publications in English – in contrast to his prolific output in Greek – has long posed a linguistic barrier, limiting broader international engagement with his alternative approach to critical regionalism.

This talk is a collaboration with Hellenic Centre and follows on from his lecture last year on Suzana Antonakaki.

Dr. Stylianos (Stelios) Giamarelos is Associate Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, with a decade-long career in architectural publishing and a multi-disciplinary background in architecture engineering, architectural history and theory, and history and philosophy of science and technology. He is the author of Resisting Postmodern Architecture: Critical Regionalism before Globalisation (London: UCL Press, 2022; A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books’ ‘Favourite Book of 2023’) and the editor of Suzana Antonakaki, Architectural Poetics: Texts 1959-2019 (Heraklion: Crete University Press, 2023; Hartis magazine ‘Essay Award 2023’). He currently serves as the ‘Architecture’ series editor for Crete University Press. In 2008, he co-curated ATHENS by SOUND, the National Participation of Greece in the 11th Biennale of Architecture in Venice.