News

Press Release

GREAT – Greek Architectural Talent

A new institution for promoting Greek architectural creativity by the Athens Concert Hall Organization and AGET GCCo - Lafarge

GREAT 2013 – THEIR FIRST BUILDINGS

Athens, November 20, 2012 – The Athens Concert Hall and HERACLES GCCo, member of Lafarge Group, announced today their partnership for the organization of GREAT – Greek Architectural Talent, a new institution aiming at promoting and highlighting Greek architectural creativity. The initiative was announced by Mr. Ioannis Manos, President of the Athens Concert Hall Organization, Mr. Manolis Chris Kyprianides, Chairman of the Board of Heracles GCCo, Mr. Pierre Deleplanque, CEO of Lafarge Greece, and Mr. Memos Filippidis, architect and curator of GREAT 2013.
This initiative further extends the dialogue developed among the architectural community and the two organizations: the Athens Concert Hall, through its Megaron Plus program, and Lafarge Group, through its partnerships for finding solutions that respond to modern constructions challenges and serve the architectural vision. GREAT focuses on the Greek architectural talent and the innovation that springs from it and attempts to enhance its appeal to the international architectural scene.
As part of this partnership, architectural organizations will take place every two years, with the first one, GREAT 2013 – “Their First Buildings”, concerns an architectural competition for undergraduate and postgraduate theses. The selected theses will be selected by an international jury and will be exhibited in Athens Concert Hall in 2013

GREAT 2013 – THEIR FIRST BUILDINGS
The first initiative GREAT 2013, under the theme “Their First Buildings”, is a contest for undergraduate and postgraduate theses prepared by students of Greek Schools of Architecture and Greek students attending schools abroad. The participants are invited to submit their first comprehensive efforts for designing works capable of shaping the form of the cities and the environment of the future. The theses must be drafted during the period of 2008-2012. The competition begins on Tuesday, November 20, 2012. The submission of participations takes place online through great2013.com, until February 1, 2013.
An international jury consisting of Nikos Ktenàs, Manuel Aires Mateus, José Selgas and Lucia Cano – architects who have different approaches in their field, thus securing the necessary pluralism, as well as a synoptic representation of the most significant modern trends in architecture – will be responsible for selecting the best theses, which will be exhibited in the form of models, in the Athens Concert Hall, in May 2013. Architect Memos Filippidis is the curator of the exhibition and the coordinator of GREAT 2013.
The theme of the first organization, Their First Buildings, “focuses on the talent and the creativity of young architects before and outside the limitations dictated by the assignments they will be usually undertaking after their studies”, notes Memos Filippidis, architect and curator of the exhibition. “This organization brings forth their tendency to overcome these conventionalities and to try – within the environment of their schools – to design larger scale projects, which are themes that might by their hidden desires, and projects in which they would like to get specialized and which they are expecting to implement in the long-run”, he adds.

Press Contacts

Download PressKit