Thomas Doxiadis, a Greek architect and landscape architect of international recognition, will present a lecture on the crisis of landscaping and urbanism in Greece, next Monday 21st of September, at the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture. It is a joint event of the Greek Community of Melbourne and the Estia-Hellenic Women’s Cultural Association, as a part of the Greek History and Culture Seminars.

The crisis is seen as a terrible time for Greece. Yet it holds the seeds of the future. The age when money was no object is past. We are called to do much more with much less, to answer not the question "what is this going to cost", but "what is the maximum we can achieve with very limited resources".

Fortunately, both the past and the future come to our aid. The past provides metron, the balanced measure in all things. Beauty in essence and simplicity. Parsimony, the careful use of materials. Metis, clever creativity. And a very long tradition of recycling the old to make the new.
The future provides ecology, the ideas of working with natural processes, with the minimum amount of disturbance and inputs into nature. Together these practical and ethical positions provide the foundation for a new kind of practice, one which Thomas has been exploring through a number of designed and realized projects

Thomas Doxiadis, ASLA, is a Greek architect and landscape architect of international recognition. Born in Athens (1970), he received his B.A. from Harvard University (1992).

Subsequently he studied architecture and Landscape Architecture at Harvard University (M. Arch, MLA, 1998). His undergraduate thesis, Kastanitsa, studies the historic Tsakonian village. His graduate thesis, Designing for Democracy, addresses the relationship between spatial form and political function. He was teaching assistant at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and has received academic awards such as the Harvard College Scholarship, Thomas T. Hoopes Prize, Rudolf Arnheim Prize, and the Penny White Award.

He returned to Greece in 1999, where he was Section Manager of the Athens Olympics Organizing Committee (1999-2003), responsible for landscape and Look of the City. This afforded him the possibility to live in Sydney as an observer of the 2000 Olympics. Concurrently he was Advisor to the Organization for the Planning of Athens (1999-2001). He has taught in the university (Adjunct Lecturer, University of Patras, 2003-2007, and others). He is currently Chair of the Natural Environment council of the Greek Society for Natural and Cultural Preservation. Thomas has written about and participated in conferences focusing on ecology, landscape, and the city.

In 1999 Thomas founded the architecture/landscape practice “doxiadis+”, which addresses design on the basis of environmental and landscape ecology principles. The practice consists of architects and landscape architects, and has extensive international collaborations. Projects include design of developments, parks, marinas, residencies, resorts, urban interventions, landscape restoration, and policy. The practice has received awards such as the 2010 Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Awards (Commendation), and the first prize for the urban space in front of the new Acropolis Museum.

Also to be noted that Thomas Doxiadis is in Australia to take part in “The Australian Landscape Conference” where he is one of the key note speakers (http://www.landscapeconference.com/2015/speakers/)
The organising Committee of the Seminars wish to thank the sponsors Velos and Velos Lawyers, ESTIA-Hellenic Women’s Cultural Association.

When: Thursday, 21 September 2015, 7.00pm
Where: Greek Centre, Mezzanine Level, 168 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Language: English
Entry: Free

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