The New City will be completed, it will become. Not, of course, by architects and urban planners of the, who surely believe, these poor people, that they can regulate the lives of people beforehand and the future of humanity, with rulers, with subdecimeters, angles and, within the plans of their philanthropy, narcissistically (Marxist, fascist or bourgeois), drowning and drowning, to regulate.

No, the New City will not be built in this way; but it will be built by all men, when men, having exhausted their denials, both good and bad, see the shining light of antisophistication – that is, the light of doctrine-free, unclothed Truth- cease in blood and heavy sins to dip their hands and feet, and let in their souls, with an eager appetite, all the trees of Eden, with full fruit and without blossoming-at God, or the Gods, completely free to blossom. Andreas empiricus, Octana

SELECTION, ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY of passages in Andreas Embirokos’ poetic work, which refer to the city and especially to Athens, by the architect-urban planner and Athenian scholar Alexandros Papageorgiou-Venetta, who concludes : “The poet’s attitude towards the place of his living space is a hymnal one. The serene Attic landscape hides within it pulsating forces : diffuse light, incessant movement, tumultuous movement, unceasing vigilance, which fascinate him”.

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

ALEXANDROS PAPAGEORGIOU-VENETAS is an architect-urban planner and historian of urban planning. He was born in Athens in 1933. Graduated from the National Technical University of Athens in 1956. Postgraduate studies in Paris in urban planning. Doctorate in engineering from the Technical University of Berlin Charlottenburg (1972). Professor of the History of Urban Planning at the Raymond Lemaire Postgraduate Centre at the University of Louvain (1975-1985). Visiting professor at the Technical Universities of Stuttgart (1981-1982), Munich (1996-1997), and Heidelberg (2003-2004). Member of the Council of Europe’s Council of Historic Landscapes and Towns (1974-1977). UNESCO and HABITAT experts on the conservation of historic towns and cities.

He has carried out important urban-land-planning studies for Chios (1968), the island complex of Mykonos, Delos, and Reneia (1973-1974), and the old town of Chania (1978). Specialist researcher in the protection and regeneration of historic cities.

He is internationally recognized as a scholar of the urban history of modern Athens. Honorary doctorate of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens (1998). Author of 34 monographs in Greek, French, English, and German, and more than 120 articles focusing on the history of urban planning and the protection of the man-made and natural environment.