Aget

The existing building is a rare example of the brutalist architecture movement in Greece, erected in 1972, it’s one of the most important works of the renowned Greek architect, Alexandros Tombazis.
The revival of the existing historic building was a moral challenge for us, particularly in terms of what the extent of our intervention on the existing structure would be.
In 2010 the building was abandoned and was to be demolished. In 2017 the building was bought by a private company who after a closed architectural competition assigned us it’s radical renovation.
Unfortunately a lot of different textures were applied on the building through time that made it loose it’s apparent concrete brutalist texture.

We started with a deep cleaning of all the surfaces and we chemically analysed the composition of the original concrete. Finally, we applied a 6mm cement-based skin to the whole building’s concrete surfaces, based on the findings of the chemical analysis and after numerous, on site, samples.

However, within the building’s interior, our goal was not to reduce our design down to a faithful reconstruction, back to its original form. The drastic spatial interior rearrangements aimed at creating a new space that we felt was already always there, within the building’s ‘subconscious’, since 1972.