Museum and Documentation Centre for Rigas Velestinlis

Velestino, Greece

competition entry, honorable mention

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Kostas Manolidis, 2023

(with Jason Abbott and Georgios Chasiotis)

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Rigas Velestinlis (1757–1798) was a Greek writer, political thinker and revolutionary that envisioned the Balkan uprising against the Ottoman Empire. His pursuits were not limited to plans to overthrow the Ottoman domination, but also extended to the whole range of scientific and humanitarian goals of the Enlightenment and the social vanguards of the time.

The proposed Museum incorporates spatial qualities, tensions and alternations that resonate with the multiplicity and importance of his work. The creation of the floor plan refers to the concepts of rupture and unification. It begins as a closed rectangular shape which is penetrated obliquely by a force that breaks it down and reorganizes it internally. This internal drama and geometric rupture indirectly recall the revolutionary and enlightening ideas of Rigas Velestinlis. The diagonal torsion that assaults and breaks the solid frame inscribes in space the intensity of Rigas' great liberatory vision. And this force is not only dissolving the rigid and closed shape, but also reconstructs and enriches it.

A complementary organizational aspect of the building has to do with the different orientation of the layouts on the ground floor and on the first floor. The overlapping parallel arrangements and movements in space interweave in a way similar to Rigas' perplexing calligraphic signature.

The disruption of the volume establishes a new dynamic equilibrium, introducing voids that bring light, and a harmonious juxtaposition of individual spatial units. It intends to implicitly evoke Rigas' pioneering proposal for cooperation and unification of the enslaved Balkan peoples.