Grand Tour #4

• Thessaloniki

How can Grand Tour #4 lead to a rich comprehension and creative interpretation of Thessaloniki? How can we “animate” an inspiring itinerary through the different scales and layers of the city’s urban topography? How can we augment this time-condensed Grand Tour, so that it leads to an informed perspective on the city’s identity(ies)?

In response to the above questions, we begun to discuss on how GT4 will propose a method of reading the city’s physical geography, its historical topography as well as its contemporary urban structure. We elaborated on how visiting selected exemplary buildings cannot occur independently of their broader context, namely, the historic, economic, social and cultural circumstances, that shaped the conditions for the building’s emergence, and within which they can be fully understood. We continued by discussing how our walking itineraries could also propose a method of recognizing and understanding the city’s past, present and (near-)future tensions.

In the end, we decided to devise a coherent plan of strolls and encounters that we believe can lead to a clarification of the city’s urban fabric, a delineation of its relationship with its physical topography and a comprehension of its multicultural historic physiognomy.

Therefore, for GT4, we delineated 4+1 organizational schemata: (i) The Campus, (ii) The Municipal Axis, (iii) The Palimpsest, (iv) The Promenade, (+1) Metropolitan Events. These schemata can be useful only insofar as they function as components of a diagram, highlighting and hopefully clarifying the crucial constituents of Thessaloniki’s urban fabric. It goes without saying that that other, alternative readings of the city exist that are equally valid to those proposed here. Nevertheless, we believe that our conception of GT4 offers an effective, even fruitful, method for recognizing and understanding the undivided metropolitan experience of Thessaloniki.