Silent Crowd

Urban Design

Thessaloniki, Greece

2013

1.14 hectares / 2.82 acres

with A.Manolaki, G.Velgiris, S.Dimitriou, M.Koutsari, K.Panopoulos, M.Panagiotidou, Y.Tsoukalas

Landscape Architect: M.Koulouri

MEP: N.Mantzos

Awards: 1st. Honorable Mention in the competition organized by the municipality of Thessaloniki for the reconstruction of the square

In the framework of the present synthetic process, it is accepted that Thessaloniki, apart from being a palimpsest of architectural features embedded in a network of urban discontinuities, it is also a space that has been occupied by people who are not present today. The core idea of SILENT CROWD is the orchestration of the different symbolisms of the historical center of Thessaloniki, this time at the level of the history of people that have occupied the city.

The square is imaginably divided into two functional natures: In the three sides where the urban facades appear, the osmosis with the cityscape is aimed, while in the micro-scale, hard surfaces and extroverted uses are engaged. At the places where the square starts meeting the sea, the hard surfaces are abandoned and the plantings engage in the dominance of the natural soil.

A gradual change of materials is created around the square, allowing its core to accommodate the transmission of various meanings. The resulting excavation is covered with cast soil which hosts the traces of an event that took place 70 years ago and represents the last massive presence of Jews population in Thessaloniki. The use of lights at ground level reproducing the relationship of the void and the full between the crowd and the square. The whole surface takes the shape of a rift in the city, serving as an interruption of the urban landscape in order to dedicate its interior to urban memory.