Renaissance Garden

  • Year: 2020
  • Location: Patras, Greece
  • Size: 550.000 m2

This project is a competition proposal for the regeneration of Patras’ old port and seafront. Patras is a city with a deeply classical character mainly because of its urban plan, which resembles the Renaissance quests for the Ideal City, and its rich past which gave birth to the Neoclassical language of the facades. This proposal for the regeneration of the city’s old port attempts to translate this character into a contemporary vocabulary of urban forms which is in essence critically regionalist and will embed the 55 hectares of new urban realm into the place and its spirit.

After closely examining the image of the city, the streets, the plan, the scale and the articulation of the details, it becomes apparent that Patras is a place where the ideals of the Renaissance urbanism are deeply rooted. Therefore, the proposal for the mediator between the urban fabric and the sea is a Renaissance Garden. The Garden as a contemporary expression of the Italian gardens of the 14th c. is a collection of richly planted routes and focal points with direct references to the old city’s pavements and fountains, but also an open museum, exhibiting parts of the city’s ancient history.