Time to rebuild cities the traditional way
Neo-traditional architecture is slowly but surely gaining ground as the coming international response to modernism, with its glass towers and its dissection of modern urban life into home, work, entertainment, and consumption. Neo-traditional architecture entails a quiet revolution, a new social contract that finds expression within a new aesthetic and functional organization of cities. It is an architectural language spoken in the days before the appearance of the «little boxes» of Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, and all those who followed them. Nevertheless, the proponents of neo-traditional architecture claim that they are expressing a contemporary social need and deny any allegations of conservatism. Neo-traditionalists today agree that it is the modernists who now represent the establishment. Buildings in the neo-traditional style are certainly distinctive, with a foundation, a main body and a distinct roof, usually sloping. Glass surfaces are avoided and the morphology is often majestic, built of environmentally friendly materials appropriate for each type of building. This form of architecture represents a new principle in town planning and by extension, a new way of organizing society. Neo-traditional architects believe that the industrial aesthetics of modernism have been overexploited and have created artificial divisions of life in big cities, with a resulting increase in pollution and wasted energy. Buildings of this kind first began to appear in the 1980s, first in Britain and the USA, and gradually everywhere else, even in Greece. On the island of Spetses, the Pitiousa settlement designed by the architect Demetri Porphyrios is a typical example. Porphyrios himself, who keeps a large office in London, is one of the main representatives of this school in the world. Another of his buildings, the headquarters of the Interamerican Group, is just being completed on Syngrou Avenue. Greek architects working abroad have been swelling the ranks of the neo-traditionalist school, and with some distinction. Richard Economakos and Michael Lykoudis, longtime collaborators at the University of Notre Dame in the US state of Indiana, have sufficient experience to enable them to evaluate the international scene. Economakis is the author of «Nisyros: History and architecture of an Aegean island» (Athens, Melissa, 2001) and works in Porphyrios’s office in London. Lykoudis organized the international exhibition «The Art of Building Cities» at the famed Art Institute of Chicago. With architect Norman Crowe, they edited the book «Building Cities: Towards a Civil Society and a Sustainable Environment» (Artmedia Press London, 1999). Both agree that prospects for the new architectural movement are very bright. «I base my view on the impressive development of the movement since the 1980s, but also on the apparent bankruptcy of modernism which has ended its ideological cycle,» said Economakis. The environment «The main problem people are facing today is environmental,» claims Lykoudis. «The problem of architecture is not separate from that of town planning. Our cities must be environmentally and culturally viable. Using the principles of traditional architecture and town planning we can consume fewer natural resources and waste very little energy,» he said. The new traditional city facilitates the movement of pedestrians. Services and supplies are concentrated in neighborhoods. People cover shorter distances in their cars and there is a stronger sense of community. Lykoudis said that as far as construction is concerned, buildings with sloping roofs, exterior walls, and openings made of strong materials assure the future of the city and restrict energy wastage. Economakis attributes the appeal of neo- traditional architecture to precisely this search for solutions to contemporary problems. He claims there is a vicious circle arising from the ideology of the zeitgeist and the continual innovations being promoted by modernism. «Neo-traditionalists have overcome the complex imposed by modernism with the [modernists’] unfounded accusation that tradition paralyzes the architect’s creative spirit. Yet they recognize that creativity assumes real value when it is based on recognized, developing, traditional and local means of expression, and above all is not aimed at promoting the designer’s ingenuity but rather the composition of a harmonious, civilized environment.» It appears that neo-traditional architecture expresses social needs that are already evident. Citizens of cities, particularly in America, are looking for a calmer urban environment. Some local authorities (and later national governments) accept the new architecture and look forward to long-term benefits from it. «Today the establishment is modernism,» said Lykoudis. «…which has identified with the big firms and multinational monopolies. The current modernist movement is aimed at a global monoculture and threatens all local societies and economies,» he said.
