In Progress
Commissioned by the Municipality of Loutraki to re-imagine, connect and transform the town's waterfront.
We are asked by the municipality:
To rethink and redesign a part of the town’s waterfront promenade.
Loutraki is a thin wedge between the mountains and the sea. A town bounded by the Geraneia
mountains and the Corinthian gulf. Healing waters known from antiquity, come from their particular
geology and emerge as springs close by and then into the sea. Minerals. Sodium, calcium,
magnesium, potassium, radon. From rock to water and to the body, geology gave the town its 20th
century identity.
Earlier 19th century explorations, scientific analysis of the therapeutic springs turned Loutraki into a
popular bath town in prewar and postwar times. From thermal waters to thermal baths and from
bottled water to an industry of watery exports. Yet something changed in the process.
Transformation in the form of casino and leisure brought another kind of development.
The town has turned its back on the mountain, not only figuratively.
Hotels, some still open, some closed for years, echo the 1930s premise.
We walk. We drink the water from the spring, and swim where it comes out into the sea. Taste the
water, saline.
Trying to understand Loutraki’s various natures, built, arboreal, liquid, botanical, imagined and
realized. Healing and toxicity. We find traces, fragments and signs. We observe the contradictions
around us.
The waterfront: stretching from the park to the edges of the town. We find discontinuities,
disrepairs, disjunctions in the fabric. The potential is there but is not visible. So we argue for it.
ATTENTION!
See, the mountain ends here in this corner.
Look this is where the first casino was built.
Take this path, we find the only moment the mountain meets the sea.
We encounter forgotten alleyways.
Take them and embed them into the waterfront, they can draw in people in from the street.
We propose more than what we are asked for.
To recognize what is there, there is so much already.
Advocate to build less.
The etymology of theory is just looking. Theoro.
If there is one theory in this landscape is to look at what is there.
The prompt also asks for a monument.
A monument to what we wonder? We bring rocks down from the mountain.
Pile them up, you can climb and look out onto the sea.
Bring more rocks along the promenade from other Loutropolis, Methana, Kaifa, Kyllini.
Re-imagine that fictional network of healing places.
We propose more unsolicited elements:
A sailing school for children. The town is concerned about parking spots. You can have both.
There is one principle in the waterfront, access, mobility, for all.
All levels are connected with ramps.
Movement of all bodies, abilities, capacities and ages
