Parallel readings Workshop - discussion

At the background of Hélène Binet’s photographic exhibition of the modernist icon-residence of the architect Neoptolemos Michaelides, Point Centre for Contemporary Art is hosting a theoretical workshop in the form of a discussion on Saturday, January 31, 11:00 am. Following the invitation of Petros Phokaides, the discussion will be joined by the architectural historian/theorists, Panayiota Pyla (Cyprus) and Yorgos Tzirtzilakis (Greece), who will reflect on themes that relate to the particular residence and other relevant postwar themes like nature, collecting and authorship. The main goal of this workshop - discussion is to formulate critical perspectives across Neoptolemos Michaelides’s work and the larger postwar architectural culture, by confronting symbolic legacies and historiographical discourses of modernism.

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Panayiota I. Pyla, Ph.D., is an architectural historian and theorist. She is Associate Professor and Chair, of the Department of Architecture and the director of the Mesarch Lab at the University of Cyprus. She holds a Ph.D. in the History-Theory of Architecture and Urbanism from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA, 2002). Pyla' s research has an interdisciplinary scope, spanning the disciplines of architectural history, cultural criticism, and environmental studies. Among her works is the edited volume Landscapes of Development: The Impact of Modernization Discourses on the Physical Environment of the Eastern Mediterranean, 2013, the article, “Ambivalent Politics and Modernist Debates in Postcolonial Cyprus,” JoA16:6, 2011, pp. 885-913, as well as the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE) article “Crisis Spins” (Forthcoming, February 2015). Her article “Ηassan Fathy Revisited. Postwar Discourses on Science, Development, and Vernacular Architecture” received the JAE best article award (2007). She chaired sessions at international conferences (SAH, EAHN) and presented her research at numerous other venues.

Yorgos Tzirtzilakis is Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly and artistic advisor of DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art. He has curated the Greek Participation at the 52nd International Art Exhibition Biennale di Venezia (2007) and coordinated the architectural design of the recent exhibition Hell as Pavilion (2013) in Palais de Tokyo in Paris. He has curated various exhibitions, edited monographs, books, special issues and participated with critical essays and reviews in numerous exhibition catalogues and magazines. Some of his most recent publications include the book On the edge. New Architectures in Cyprus, 2011; the co-edited catalogue, Hell as Pavilion: A Contemporary Greek Peripeteia, Exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013; and the book, Sub-Modernity and the Aesthetics of Joy-Making Mourning. The Crisis Effect in Contemporary Greek Culture, 2014.