Panagiotis Dragonas
Visiting Fellow
- AffiliationUniversity of PatrasResearch Project:The Filmed Apartment: Biopolitics of Domesticity in Modern Athens
Panos Dragonas is an architect, curator and professor of architecture and urban design at the Department of Architecture, University of Patras. In 2012 he was the commissioner and co-curator of the Greek participation entitled "Made in Athens" at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition -la biennale di Venezia. He has curated -alone or in collaboration- the exhibitions "Adhocracy [Athens]" (2015), "Rethink Athens" (2013), "14F/21GR. Young Architects from France and Greece" (2012) and the "2nd Biennale of Young Greek Architects" (1998). He has also co-curated the "Rethink Athens - Urban Challenges" cycle of events at the Onassis Cultural Centre (2013-15). From 2001 to 2013 he was consultant editor of the annual review Architecture in Greece. He has published extensively on issues of Greek architecture and the city . His current research and design activities focus on the transformations of the Greek cities during the economic and social crisis, and the connections between cinema, architecture and the modern city. In 2001, he established dragonas christopoulou architects in collaboration with Varvara Christopoulou. Their projects have been distinguished in 10 architectural competitions and have been widely published in international reviews and exhibitions.
About the Research Project
The Filmed Apartment: Biopolitics of Domesticity in Modern Athens
The main object of research is the development of domesticity in modern Athens during post-War reconstruction. Domestic spaces and domestic life in Athens shall be investigated through their cinematic representations in selected Greek movies from the 1950s to the 2010s. Research will focus on the construction of the modern subject in the mainstream movies of the 1960s. The Greek city will be examined as a biopolitical project that has been put into question by the critical cinema of the twentieth century and is systematically deconstructed by the new Greek wave. The construction of subjectivity in the domestic space of Athens involves the establishment of subtle class relations in the typical apartment block, the formation of roles and gender relations in the typical family, and the dissemination of cultural norms mostly related with leisure and well-being. It is also related to the informal process of producing the Greek city and the direct participation of the residents in it. Domestic space shall be examined as a biopolitical project, which takes into consideration the interaction between modern architecture and technology, the bottom-up economic development of the Greek cities, and the dissemination of new lifestyles through media in the modernization of Greek society.