Monday, 8 Mar 2004
What is Greece but a footstool of empires? Since the Macedonian conquest, Greece has fallen under subjugation time and again. Latest abusers of the Hellenes are trans-nationalists like architect Bernard Tschumi, designer of the new Acropolis Museum. Back on February 29, Nikos Salingaros posted a prescient essay at 2Blowhards. He anticipated the Greek government might collapse like a badly designed building, and yesterday the voters kicked it down. Few countries have a powerful enough heritage for architecture to become a decisive political issue, but the socialists of PASOK had so mishandled construction for the summer Olympics that it appears Greece may suffer major international embarassment. The new government has just a few months to clean up the mess and get projects back on track.
Alan Sullivan