Aris Konstantinidis (1913–1993) was a Greek modernist architect whose work, rooted in the country's anonymous vernacular building and its landscape, laid the ground for a modern Greek architecture. Born in Athens, he studied at the Technical University of Munich from 1931 to 1936, where he met the Modern Movement, and then worked for the town planning department of Athens and the Ministry of Public Works. He led the Workers' Housing Organisation from 1955 to 1975 and, from 1957 to 1967, the technical service of the Greek National Tourism Organisation, planning workers' housing across the country and the state-built Xenia hotels. His books on Greek vernacular architecture, argued that tradition and landscape should ground modern practice. In the 1980s Alexander Tzonis, Liane Lefaivre and Kenneth Frampton linked his work to critical regionalism.
Read moreShow less
The Weekend House, Anavyssos (1962) is the most emblematic of his private projects. For the tourism organisation he designed the Xenia Hotel, Mykonos (1960), one of a series of state hotels that also included Kalambaka and Olympia. The Archaeological Museum of Ioannina (1966) is among his public museums, alongside the museum at Komotini.