The architectural event “Nikos Ktenas – Topologies” was successfully held on December 12 at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) Lighthouse, to a full audience. Organized by ek magazine under the auspices of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture, the event highlighted the profound contribution of Nikos Ktenas to contemporary Greek architecture, architectural education, and culture. Through a series of presentations, key aspects of his built and teaching work in Greece, Italy, and Switzerland were brought to the foreground.

The symposium opened with a short excerpt from the television program “Urban Landscape”, dedicated to Nikos Ktenas. The first speaker, Panayotis Tournikiotis, Professor Emeritus at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and President of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture, placed Ktenas’s work within the broader legacy of modern rationalism. He was followed by Pierre-Alain Croset, Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, who addressed Ktenas’s teaching activity in Milan and at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio.

The influence of the Ticino School on Nikos Ktenas’s architecture – particularly its distinctive approach to the relationship between modern architecture and place – was explored by Rena Sakellaridou, Professor Emerita at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Afterwards, Manolis Stavrakakis, Assistant Professor at NTUA, reflected on his dialogues with Ktenas, offering an interpretation of his work through alternative forms of spatial representation, including visual poetry, the visual arts, and video.

Dimitris Philippidis, Professor Emeritus at NTUA, recalled his formative encounter with Ticino architecture during the period of Ktenas’s presence there, while photographer Erieta Attali spoke about the beginning of her engagement with architectural photography through documenting his buildings and their relationship to the landscape. Ariadne Vozani, Professor at NTUA, analyzed the multiple references that informed Ktenas’s work and the ways in which they coalesced into a distinct architectural identity.

A detailed account of the educational experience at the Politecnico di Milano was presented by Elena Fontanella and Lorenzo Guzzini, who reflected on their time as students and later as teaching assistants to Nikos Ktenas, accompanied by archival photographic material. The event concluded with Katerina Vasilakou, architect and long-standing collaborator of Nikos Ktenas in Greece for nearly two decades, who shed light on both his architectural practice and his human qualities, sharing personal experiences and anecdotes from their close professional relationship.

On the occasion of the event, ek Architectural Publications released the first edition of the new bilingual volume “Nikos Ktenas Architecture | Topologies”, edited by Ariadne Vozani and Katerina Vasilakou. The book presents the complete catalogue of Nikos Ktenas’s works, featuring ten selected projects documented through drawings and photographs, alongside archival material and an extensive unpublished interview conducted by Panos Tsakopoulos for ek magazine in 2018.

Sponsors: AHI Carrier, Alumil, Europa, Halo Architectural Lighting

Stage Design Sponsor: MOROSO by Casa di Patsi

Supporters: Acrilan, Elval Colour, KEBE, Koligas Wood, Pirotek, PNM Construction, Rouchotas, VIEW Frames

Hospitality Sponsor: Electra Rhythm Athens

Wine Sponsor: Zacharias Wine

Media Sponsor: News24|7

Photos: Aleko Syntelis for ek Magazine

Sincere geometry

The residence is conceived as an architectural gesture rooted deeply in its natural setting. Specifically, the building’s form merges from an interactive engagement with the landscape, resulting in a structure that both asserts its presence and remains open to the immediate context.

Design Philosophy

Simple lines and rigorous proportions carry a “sincere” visual geometry that is further enhanced through the material honesty of exposed concrete. The design rejects imitation and speaks to an architectural ethos that embraces authenticity. Material, form and space are all approached with profound architectural discipline, eventually producing a residence that feels both monolithic and porous.

Functional Organization

Organized on a steep hillside, the residence unfolds through a sequence of interlocking volumes and voids. Large rectangular openings break up the rigidness of the square, acting as apertures that connect the residence to the site, shifting between interior and exterior thresholds. The plan is comprised of layered planes and long horizontal spans that create double height spaces as well as sheltered outdoor rooms. In parallel, a series of structural elements, such as a concrete staircase leading to a sunken courtyard, celebrate the residence’s sculpted simplicity. The plan is straightforward yet spatially rich, offering a continuous dialogue between enclosure and openness.

Context Integration

The residence is positioned within the terrain with precision, rising from the forest canopy as a measured, geometric insertion. Rather than imitating the surrounding nature, the building becomes a dynamic counterpoint, where its rigid concrete form contrasts the organic densities of the surrounding nature.

Dialogue of place & structure

The building design reflects Nikos Ktenàs’ belief that architecture emerges from a profound dialogue between place, structure, and human presence. Situated within one of Athens’ urban suburbs, the project explores the relationship between private living and the expansive cityscape.

Design Philosophy

The making of the building is regarded as an investigative process, where the design draws from the immediate site, eventually “returning” to the landscape a new scale and form. The composition is minimal and clear, celebrating the honesty of materials avoiding shallow, imitative gestures. Specifically, concrete – a rather popular, albeit misunderstood, material in Athens – becomes a medium of authenticity used for both structural stability and material texture.

Functional Layout

The project unfolds vertically, creating a sequence of shifting interior and exterior spaces. A transparent core, placed at the edge of the concrete façade, contains the central staircase that becomes the primary circulation route throughout the residence, allowing in parallel ample natural light to enter the space. Each level establishes a different visual connection with the city, reinforcing the relationship with urban space. The concrete blocks retreat at times, forming terraces, intermediate balconies and deep windows, crafting a residence that is both private and public, introspective and outward-looking.

Material Palette

Concrete is the material protagonist of the design, where its tactile presence is intentionally left visible. In contrast, the glass-clad staircase introduces lightness and a transparent quality that break up the building’s solidity. In the interior, metallic elements, shutters and railings add a layer of precision throughout the space, reinforcing the building’s modernist character.

Sculpted Skin

The building, through its structural logic, addresses the reinvention of the apartment-building typology, positioning the uncovered courtyard (akalyptos) as the central entrance space and as a transitional zone between the city and the private living areas.

Design Philosophy

The akalyptos becomes a spatial pause, a moment of shift from horizontal to vertical movement, from public domain to private realm. This reinterpretation restores to the akalyptos the spatial significance of a contemporary atrium: a central void through which visitors access the surrounding living areas, and which, in turn, projects outward to complete the urban façade.

Structural System & Façade

The load-bearing structure, composed of exposed reinforced concrete, frames only the central atrium, supporting the floor slabs as cantilevers. This arrangement provides maximum freedom in configuring both the apartment layouts and the exterior façades.

These façades are conceived as a self-supporting “sculpted skin,” incorporating essential functions of the residences through voids, projections, bay windows, and fully operable glazing. The result is a volume that appears monolithic yet permeable – transparent in selected fragments that frame views of the immediate urban context.

Urban Integration

The top floor is designed as a “hanging garden.” Toward the interior of the block, it is enclosed by a solid continuous wall of exposed concrete; toward the city, it is defined by the upper edge of the self-supporting façade. At this elevated level, the interplay between these two structural elements enables visitors to reorient themselves and reconsider the building’s relationship to the broader urban fabric.

Nikos Ktenas became widely known through his project “Inside-Out” -one of the most iconic apartment buildings in Athens. The building not only transformed the urban landscape of Neo Psychiko, standing out as a radically contemporary proposal, but was also honored with the 2013-2017 Architecture Award of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture. As an architectural gesture, “Inside-Out” established itself as a landmark, offering a creative and timely reinterpretation of the apartment-building typology, with a distinct impact on both the building’s internal organization and its external form.

“I believe that architecture is, above all, a spiritual process—or, as Louis Kahn so aptly put it, a ‘…search into the nature of human existence’.”

— Nikos Ktenas, July 2007

The event is fully booked

ek magazine, with the support of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture, will host an event honoring architect Nikos Ktenas at the SNFCC in December 2025. Nikos Ktenas, Associate Professor at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), passed away in July 2022, during the most mature and creatively productive phase of his professional and academic career.

He was an architect with an international presence and a characteristic consistency of work between theory and practice. He taught in the United States and Europe, collaborated with Luigi Snozzi at the EPF Lausanne and was a professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Mendrisio and the National Technical University of Athens. His work, recognizable for its geometric purity and deep connection with the place, has been showcased in important European institutions, including the Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris and the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam. He had repeatedly distinguished himself in Greek and international competitions and was twice nominated for the European Mies van der Rohe Award. In 2017, he was awarded the first prize of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture for the project Inside-Out in Neo Psychiko.

Through a series of presentations by invited speakers, the event will seek to highlight his significant contributions to contemporary Greek architecture, architectural education, and cultural discourse.

Speakers:

Sponsors: AHI Carrier, Alumil, Europa, Halo Architectural Lighting

Stage Design Sponsor: MOROSO by Casa di Patsi

Supporters: Acrilan, Elval Colour, KEBE, Koligas Wood, Pirotek, PNM Construction, Rouchotas, VIEW Frames

Hospitality Sponsor: Electra Rhythm Athens

Wine Sponsor: Zacharias Wine

Media Sponsor: News24|7

The event is fully booked