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LABOUR, CITY, ARCHITECTURE:
ATHENS AS A CASE STUDY
PIER-VITTORIO AURELI, MARIA SHHRAZADE GIUDICI,
PIER-VITTORIO AURELI, MARIA SHHRAZADE GIUDICI, PLATON ISSAIAS

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Architecture and Labour

The main premise of our research is to oppose an empirical approach to the city and to return to the possibility of formulating a theory of the city. For this
reason, we used the particular characteristics of Athens
as laboratory to reflect on a fundamental and yet overlooked aspect of the contemporary city: the profound
relationship between the nature of labour, the generic
in architecture, and the appropriation of this generic aspect of the city as a common space.
In the second half of the 20th century, production has
dramatically shifted from the space of the factory and
the tertiary office, to the city itself, to a vast all-embracing social factory. If labour was choreographed
in the factory by the order of the assembly line and in
the office by the rigid managerial treatment of employees, today labour coincides with any aspect of life.
Labour is no longer just the biological effort necessary
for the survival of the human species, clearly separated
from work and political life, as it was argued by Hannah
Arendt.1 Today labour is the very core of human production, where life, culture, affects, and politics are absorbed into one continuous space of relationships.
Labour has become ubiquitous, diffused, totalizing to
the point that it has incorporated into itself all the aspects of the city.
According to Marx, man is a social individual, an entity
that is made of both singular determinations and
generic faculties. In his Economical and Philosophical
Manuscripts,2 he merges pre-individual characteristics
of human life and the engendering life activity into one
human essence, through which man becomes aware of

1. , , / labour, (The Human Condition, 1958). ,

labour, work, action, , , , .
2. generic, , .
3. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (: The University of Chicago Press, 1958).
1. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958).
2. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, in Early Writings, int. by Lucio Colletti, trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor
Benton (London: Penguin Classics in association with New Left Review, 1975), pp. 279-400.

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himself: production. Production here must be considered as generic activity of the human being, something
that is irreducible to any specific form of labour, a preindividual capability of production, something of which
labour power is its most concrete manifestation.
Labour power is thus something that exists in potential; it is production as possibility. To extract value
from production consists precisely in capturing that
possibility, where the re-production of species, organized within the city, becomes essential.
The generic is thus becoming the fundamental spatial,
formal and even existential attribute of this condition.
In our research, we aimed to rediscover this condition
not (only) as a form of alienation, but (also) as the
source of a common space beyond its traditional segmentation in public vs. private space. The re-appropriation of the generic not as bio-political device, but as
the spatial and symbolic definition of a common space
was the main architectural goal of our work, particularly within the existing forms of property and spatial
definitions of the given case-study, the Greek city.
Typical Plan, Maison Dom-ino and the Polykatoikia
In the history of architecture, a fundamental architectural manifestation of the generic is the typical plan.3
As our collaborator and PhD researcher Francesco
Marullo has argued, the typical plan is a spatial scheme
that was designed in order to maximise the possibilities
of production in its interior. The less predictable the
transformations of forms of production are, the more
formally simple has to be the space in which production occurs and develops.
For this reason the concept of typical plan should not
be seen only as the architecture of the (Fordist) factory
but can be generalized as the archetype of modernity.
In order to govern the uncertainties and the unforeseeable development implicit in the process of production,
the spatial frame in which production occurs has to be
reduced to the least formal complexity. Standardization is not, as many assume, only a matter of mass production of built space. Standardization of (architectural) space is the response to the uncertainty and
precariousness implicit in any form of production.
The archetype of this genre, of which the polykatoikia should be understood as one of its many descendants, is Le Corbusiers Maison Dom-ino of 1914,
the ultimate symbol of industrial production, standardization and generic attributes of architecture and
the city.
The extreme formal simplicity of the polykatoikia,

4. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Early Writings, Lucio Colletti, . Rodney Livingstone
Gregor Benton (: Penguin Classics New Left Review, 1975), . 279-400.
5. Rem Koolhaas Typical Plan, SMLXL (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995).

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the generic structural framework and its open-ended

spatial qualities, cannot therefore be considered just as
the mere manifestation or elements of a modernist architectural canon. Instead, its precisely the archetypes
ability to adapt, to mutate and, most importantly, to
govern the unforeseeable developments within the capitalist mode of production. An object of architecture,
typical and generic, standardized and thus capable to
increase its adaptability and productive potentiality.
Planning through the Unit
In the context of the Greek city, and particularly
Athens, the evolution of the polykatoikia should be
understood as a very advanced model of urbanization,
which although appears to be spontaneous and unplanned, it is the result of a precise institutional and
regulatory apparatus.
In the history of this archetype, the various political and
economic relations, the struggles and the social desires
of the Greek society could be read. The polykatoikia
is the system through which the factory became the
city itself, the machine that exploited labour power,
diffused production and fostered accumulation of capital in every space and territory of the Athenian landscape. It is a device of subjectification, of class differentiation and social alienation, presented as a selfhelp, welfare project. The ultimate goal of this mode
of urbanization was the establishment of a capitalist
economic development that linked land speculation,
the small scale building industry and its respective selfenterprises, the unskilled labour of building workers
with the large group of technicians and engineers, and
all of the above to the realm of private property. It produced a vast Greek middle class, the constituents of
which were simultaneously owners, producers and consumers of space, in a paradoxical manner. The unconstrained exploitation of the land, rentals and private
ownership as the primordial economic resource, the
fragmentation of property to the most extreme level
are some of the consequences of this mode of city
planning.
It is our belief that this type of urbanization unveils
most of the pathogeneses of the Greek economic and
political institutions; in a way, the polykatoikia is the
manifestation of the wildest form of unconstrained neoliberal economy, which, as we very well experience at
the moment, can go seriously wrong. Nevertheless, it
is precisely the specimen upon which we could start discussing the possibility for a step forward, a project for
Athens that could initiate and foster an alternative pat-

3. The notion of the Typical Plan has been first put forward by Rem Koolhaas in Typical Plan, SMLXL (New York: Monacelli Press,
1995).

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1. , Ji Hyun Woo.

2. 2 , Davide Sacconi.

1. Cloister, Ji Hyun Woo.

2. Polykatoikia2 , Davide Sacconi.

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tern of development and, ultimately, life within the

city. The generic character of this architectural archetype allows us to rethink genericness not only as a form
of alienation within the contemporary forms of production, or an architectural style, but as a spatial quality that could allow for the manifestation of the
common in the urban scale. The common, as a category, is primarily a political challenge; architecture can
only describe, draw and suggest a space that could provide a framework for the common as practice.

Proposals for Athens

Our project is therefore animated by the attempt to
foster the common; but in a condition in which it is impossible to impose large-scale master plans, an alternative could only be proposed in the form of new
architectural archetypes that operate within the existing tissue. The proposals therefore aim at overcoming
the pixel-scale of the polykatoikia by enhancing the
readability of the city blocks and creating shared spaces
for the inhabitants of the block.
We tackled four themes, spaces of potential that
emerged through a careful work of analysis and redrawing of the existing condition: the reconstruction
of common courtyards, the use of the roofs, the possibility of a continuity of the stoas and the insertion of
new building types.
In the polykatoikia system the city blocks are densely
and unevenly built; there are no inner courtyards, but
only irregular leftovers. However, if the owners agreed
to cooperate, the leftovers could become shared spa
ces hosting new facilities. One of the proposed arche - types transforms the inner facades of the polykatoikias
. by inserting a continuous balcony that would turn

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3. , Ivan K. Nasution.

4. , Hyun Soo Kim.

3. Platform, Ivan K. Nasution.

4. Theatre, Hyun Soo Kim.

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these neglected spaces into Cloisters (image 1), a gesture that would also give breathing space to apartments designed for a traditional family life that does
not fit anymore the current inhabitants.
As well as the courtyards, the roofs also present unexplored potential they vary in height, are not connected and seldom used. These roofs could become the
basis for another layer of the city, a vertical extension
of the existing buildings that would complement the
polykatoikias: while the polykatoikias are fragmented
and domestic, the Polykatoikia2 (image 2) could offer
a different type of environment, more generous and
imagined for common productive use as a laboratory
for the inhabitants of the block.
If the courtyard projects restructure the existing, and
the roof projects add a new layer, we also believe that
new archetypes could also work by subtracting parts
of the built mass: for instance, in strategic points all
the non-load-bearing elements of the ground floor of
the polykatoikias could be removed, revealing a continuous Platform (image 3), an irregular field of columns and cores that could be repaved with a consistent material becoming an urban interior. In this way,
the fragmentation of the current stoas would give way
to a block-wide stoa that fosters social activities and
reveals the generic character of the polykatoikia system. The system has proved incredibly resilient and flexible and we believe that a new typological discourse
can only arise from its critical re-discussion. This is why
we can also imagine an archetype that is just a polykatoikia skeleton which, by the insertion of a new generous system of circulation, becomes an openly accessible sequence of floors used for work, play, exhibition
and production: a Theatre (image 4) of contemporary

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labour, a social infrastructure if state-driven welfare

seems impossible, offering citizens a space to use is
possibly the last kind of welfare the state can provide.
Analogous Athens
The projects, as well as our theoretical inquiries, took
a final resolution in the drawing that we called Analogous Map of Athens (image 5). The map describes
Athens not in the objective, scientific terms of
conventional cartography; on the contrary, it aims to
challenge the instrumentality of the latter and its speculated neutrality. In composing this drawing, our reference was Aldo Rossis Citt Analoga,4 a drawing in
which Rossi contrasted urban representations and artefacts with architectural projects. Similar to ours, his effort was to produce a map, whose geographical and
architectural features do not correspond to an existing
city in a scientific manner, but one that performs as
an analogy that estranged the existing attributes of urbanization.
Our eight projects are presented in this framework. Like
the exemplary excerpts of the city, they are presented
as archetypical objects, potentially repeatable. The criteria of their reproducibility are not defined in vacuum
but within the architectural form of the archetypes
themselves and are based on analogies and associations. Most importantly, they perform as two-fold
analogies: first, because they project analogically new
possible urban meanings and, secondly, because they
reveal the nature of what is already there, becoming
analogical images of the city as it actually is.

6. Aldo Rossi, La Citt Analoga: Tavola, Lotus . 13, 1976, . 5-7.

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Analoga6, Aldo Rossi, Rossi

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The archetypes are architectural forms that seek their

place in the city; as to the actual result of these
choices, we can only put forward a possible scenario,
one of the many ways the narrative could unfold. We
could ultimately say that the analogical link between
city and object is the ethos of a place: not a fixed behaviour, not a handbook rule to follow, but rather a
shared value, a way of understanding space and the way
social subjects appropriate it.

, , : /
Berlage 2010-2011.
: Juan Carlos Aristizabal, Hyun Soo Kim, Ivan Nasution, Davide Sacconi, Roberto Soundy, Yuichi Watanabe, Ji Hyun
Woo, Lingxiao Zhang.
: Pier-Vittorio Aureli, Maria Shhrazade
Giudici, , .
Labour, City, Architecture: KM Area in Athens was a yearlong thesis studio held at the Berlage Institute in the academic year 20102011.
Studio Participants: Juan Carlos Aristizabal, Hyun Soo Kim, Ivan
Nasution, Davide Sacconi, Roberto Soundy, Yuichi Watanabe, Ji
Hyun Woo, Lingxiao Zhang.
Studio Tutors: Pier-Vittorio Aureli, Maria Shhrazade Giudici, Platon Issaias, Elia Zenghelis.

4. Aldo Rossi, La Citt Analoga: Tavola, in Lotus n.13, December 1976, pp. 5-7.

Pier-Vittorio Aureli . The Possibility of an

Absolute Architecture (2011), The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism (2008) . Martino Tattara Dogma.
Maria Shhrazade Giudici .
Berlage /TU Delft. De Architekten CIE (Amsterdam), Donis (Rotterdam)
BAU (Bucharest).
(, 1984) . The City as a
Project Berlage /TU Delft.
Pier-Vittorio Aureli is an architect and educator. He is the author of The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture
(2011), The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism (2008), and other
books. Together with Martino Tattara he is the co-founder of Dogma.
Maria Shhrazade Giudici is an architect and writer. She is currently completing her PhD dissertation at the
Berlage Institute/TU Delft. She has collaborated with De Architekten CIE (Amsterdam), Donis (Rotterdam) and
BAU (Bucharest).
Platon Issaias is an architect. He is currently a PhD Candidate at the PhD Program The City as a Project at the
Berlage Institute/TU Delft.